[2004] What's Your Poison?!!? SC Tourney [by Exarkun]

[Grisu]

DISCLAIMER: Migration finished

This tournament has already ended. It was originally started by Exarkun on Dec 8, 2004. The last post was made Mar 17, 2005.
link to original signup thread on diabloii.net
link to original thread PART 1 on diabloii.net
link to original thread PART 2 on diabloii.net​

"What's Your Poison?!!?" SC Tourney Sign-up

“What’s Your Poison?!!?†Tourney

Poison Skills seem to rarely be used in this game, so here’s a chance to try some builds and skills that maybe you’ve never used.

Only 4 character types will be allowed:

Amazon—using Poison Javelin or Plague Javelin as primary attack
Assassin—using Venom as primary attack
Druid—WW using Rabies as primary attack
Necro—using Poison Dagger, Poison Explosion or Poison Nova as primary attack

Here are the class-specific stipulations:
Amazon:
Bow/XBow Skill Tree is off limits
After clvl18 weapon must be a Javelin used in conjunction with Poison Jav or Plague Jav

Assassin:
Martial Arts Skill Tree is off limits
After clvl30 weapon must be a claw(CC or CS) used in conjunction with Venom

Druid:
Elemental Skill Tree is off limits
After clvl18 any weapon can be used in conjunction with Rabies

Necromancer:
Curses Skill Tree is off limits
After clvl18 any weapon can be used in conjunction with P. Dagger, P. Explosion, or P. Nova
Summons are allowed, but NO SKELLIES, only golems

Rules & Regulations:
--This will be Softcore Tournament
--Maximum of 3 entries per character class will be signed up (So, total of 12 players)
--No Twinking
--The main purpose of this tourney is too see how far we can get using Poison, so no items, jewels, gems, runes or charms that add any other elemental damage to your attack. The only exception to this will be your summons and your merc.
--Any Merc is permitted. Mercs CAN have elemental damage other than Poison
--Except for the “off limits†skill trees any skill is permitted unless it adds non-Poison elemental damage to your attack
--Winner will be determined by reaching Matriarch/Patriarch. The player to do so at the lowest Clvl will be declared the winner.

Sign Up:
Amazon
1. Exarkun
2.
3.
Assassin
1.
2.
3.
Druid
1.
2.
3.
Necromancer
1.
2.
3.


For now, just sign-up in a reply with your User Name. I will create a new status thread once we begin.
Sign-up will be open until Friday at Midnight(Oregon time). As soon as sign-up is closed, those participating can begin.

Good Luck! Post any questions on this thread for the time being.

Exarkun

 

[Grisu]

Note: These are all posts from the original signup thread.

Eh, might want to resonsider poison nova necro. They are actually among the most powerful/safe pvm character there is.

And how are you going to deal with poison immunes if you limited your skill so much? A not viable char isn't gonna work for tourney.

Great idea! I love tourneys that are difficult. I haven't played a SC character since early 1.09, but what the heck, I'm in. :teeth:

I've got a PD necro going in another contest, so I'll try a rabies druid. Never done one of those.

How will I deal with poison immunes? Dunno. I'll figure it out when I get there. (Actually a combination of merc, bear, wand of lower resist, and running past them will probably be the plan. :lol: )

As for Poison immunes, I was thinking that most could rely on Physical damage as that is not restricted.

Question I have:
Does Rabies Damage add to your Physical damage?

“What’s Your Poison?!!?†Tourney

Poison Skills seem to rarely be used in this game, so here’s a chance to try some builds and skills that maybe you’ve never used.

Only 4 character types will be allowed:

Amazon—using Poison Javelin or Plague Javelin as primary attack
Assassin—using Venom as primary attack
Druid—WW using Rabies as primary attack
Necro—using Poison Dagger, Poison Explosion or Poison Nova as primary attack

Here are the class-specific stipulations:
Amazon:
Bow/XBow Skill Tree is off limits
After clvl18 weapon must be a Javelin used in conjunction with Poison Jav or Plague Jav

Assassin:
Martial Arts Skill Tree is off limits
After clvl30 weapon must be a claw(CC or CS) used in conjunction with Venom

Druid:
Elemental Skill Tree is off limits
After clvl18 any weapon can be used in conjunction with Rabies

Necromancer:
Curses Skill Tree is off limits
After clvl18 any weapon can be used in conjunction with P. Dagger, P. Explosion, or P. Nova
Summons are allowed, but NO SKELLIES, only golems

Rules & Regulations:
--This will be Softcore Tournament
--Maximum of 3 entries per character class will be signed up (So, total of 12 players)
--No Twinking
--The main purpose of this tourney is too see how far we can get using Poison, so no items, jewels, gems, runes or charms that add any other elemental damage to your attack. The only exception to this will be your summons and your merc.
--Any Merc is permitted. Mercs CAN have elemental damage other than Poison
--Except for the “off limits†skill trees any skill is permitted unless it adds non-Poison elemental damage to your attack
--Winner will be determined by reaching Matriarch/Patriarch. The player to do so at the lowest Clvl will be declared the winner.

Sign Up:
Amazon
1. Exarkun
2.
3.
Assassin
1.
2.
3.
Druid
1.
2.
3.
Necromancer
1.
2.
3.


For now, just sign-up in a reply with your User Name. I will create a new status thread once we begin.
Sign-up will be open until Friday at Midnight(Oregon time). As soon as sign-up is closed, those participating can begin.

Good Luck! Post any questions on this thread for the time being.

Exarkun

I rarely participate in these, but this one is neat. I'll give it a go with a Poison Necro, but with PE/Dagger, not Nova.

As for Poison immunes, I was thinking that most could rely on Physical damage as that is not restricted.

Question I have:
Does Rabies Damage add to your Physical damage?

What do you mean, if rabies modify physical damage, or does it's poison damage applies when your physical damage connects? It dosen't modify your physical damage in anyway, just add the displayed poison damage to it. Like enchant.

I want in.

I'll take an Amazon Spot.

Why not make this HC? That would really test the mettle of people. IMO, HC tourneys make people PLAY better characters, and they end sooner, as people DIE.

Anyway, what are the rules for muling? We can mule off, but not on, correct?

Also, what are the rules for handing out prizes?

crg

NSXdreamer, I questioned Rabies damage b/c of something I read on D2ii.net...


"A biting attack that deals poison damage, usable in Werewolf form only. This damage isn't very high; you can add as much with a few poison charms, so not a very popular skill. It is a pre-req for Fury, the best Werewolf skill, so at least one point is necessary. Like all poison attacks in Diablo 2, multiple uses of it just reset the poison damage over time, rather than stacking up for bigger damage.

This skill is not useful in the game since you only get the elemental damage. It doesn't add poison to your normal attack damage, and the poison doesn't even add to your poison from other sources, such as weapon or charms."

Not sure what that meant or how it works...


Crazy Runner Guy,
I thought to do this in SC since the attack skills are so limited. Since the skills are limited, I think we'll have to come up with some crazy strategies to get past certain spots and trying new strategies sometimes causes some deaths.
As for muling...yeah, muling off is fine, just no muling on. Also, playing at any "players x" setting is fine.
As for prizes, I don't have any right now. This Tourney character will be my first SP character in about a year and i don't have anything for prizes.
I'm hoping for some donations. If I get some I'll come up with a grand prize, second prize, third prize and some good stuff along the way for "First to ..." prizes. I'll know more about that in a day or 2.

Ekun

Oh yeah, d2.net was never updated for 1.10 I believe (besides a few lists). It simply means that you have to use rabies to apply poison damage, not other attacks. With synergy in 1.10 it's better, but not a whole lot (for untwinked that is, it can be pretty good with some expensive gear).

Hmm, this looks like the perfect opportunity to break out that shadowsin I wanted to try, so count me in.

I'm willing to donate stuff I find with this character for the prize stash (only golds and greens)

One more thing, I have two other characters going in tournaments, one of which is a poison necro, so the going might be a bit slow.

Last question, are skills gained from class specific things OK, IE if I pick up a +3 to phoenix strike, can I use that?

Cool. I like this idea. I'm having a blast with my current HC Tankazon character; but I must confess a growing urge to throw a freakin' javelin! :lol:
I've wanted to try a poison zon build to complete the spear/jav variants. I did lightning long ago and it was fun. I'd like to see what poison attacks are capable of. So I'll do something I've never done before, play in more than one tourney at once. I have a few days' lead in the Tankazon tourney so I'll split time between the two.

Chalk me up for a poison zon!

i wont be around much in the next month, but when i'm back i'll be playing a lot. I'll take a venom sin, and i'll do it HC just for the heck of it.

name..... badeggs

I will not join, just want to post that Venom has so low duration, that it acts almost like immediate damage. IMHO it doesn't fit the whole idea. And even with maxed venom, high level Assassin will probably do more physical damage than poison. Also I don't know why Assassins are restricted to claws when the martial arts tree is off limits.

BTW - great idea.

NSXdreamer- Thanks for the info.

Gaz-As for skills on items, if you're past clvl 30 with an assassin, you can only use Venom as your attack. In this tourney I'm not trying to limit skill point allocation but the skills themselves, so no go on using skills on items.

Insane Wayne-Good to have ya!

shermo-Sorry to say, all participants must play in SC.

Hrus-I agree that the Venom sin will be a very high powered char in this tourney . That's why I'm not playing one myself. I might not win, but I think a maxed out Plague Jav will look really cool spearing a group of baddies.
As for why I restricted them to claws, I did it to balance the Jav restriction for the Zons.

Thanks for the input, all,

Ekun

Updated Sign-up Sheet

Sign Up:
Amazon
1. Exarkun
2. Crazy Runner Guy
3. Insane Wayne
Assassin
1. Gaz
2. shermo(If Softcore)
3.
Druid
1. AlterEgo
2.
3.
Necromancer
1. doctorgonzo
2.
3.

5 spots still open...

What no poison Barbs???

I have far to many builds to play with and no time to do that in, I will have to pass but I like the idea for your tourney.

Oh and for the Assassin you may want to exclude bladefury as well. Make them fight melee :xdrunk:

And for necro Venom runeword with 20 in Pdagger rest in golem and golem synergies = great melee venom build. :xrollseye:

A well played rabies druid can be very powerful, even without the added charge bug synergy.
Edit just for a hint:
Current Skill Level: 20
Attack: +183 percent
Poison Damage: 4251-4585
over 11.6 seconds

which is about 400 damage per second. only 42 skill points used.

As for amazons poison/plague javalin with pierce all I have to say is Nice!

note to all remember rates add durations average some charms will lower your overall damage. (venom users for get that rule ).

Gaz-As for skills on items, if you're past clvl 30 with an assassin, you can only use Venom as your attack. In this tourney I'm not trying to limit skill point allocation but the skills themselves, so no go on using skills on items.

I don' understand - Venom is castable skill as Enchant, you cannot use it - you have to use normal attack at least to deliver poison damage when your weapons is "Venom enchanted". It gains that sexy green colour.

Hrus-I agree that the Venom sin will be a very high powered char in this tourney . That's why I'm not playing one myself. I might not win, but I think a maxed out Plague Jav will look really cool spearing a group of baddies.
As for why I restricted them to claws, I did it to balance the Jav restriction for the Zons.
Ekun

??? IMHO they will be low powered. I have an untwinked furysin with maxed Venom and she can't kill anything with just BFury and Venom. And she delivers more poison damage than normal attack assassin with Venom (She hits quite faster). She isn't able to kill Hell Blood Raven and that's the point I've ended playing her. 500-600 poison damage over 0,4 s is not so much. 6000 poison over 10 sec (plague javelin) is much better imho with throw and run tactic - and it will poison a lot of enemies, not just one.

As for Poison immunes, I was thinking that most could rely on Physical damage as that is not restricted.

Question I have:
Does Rabies Damage add to your Physical damage?

Having played a Rabies Druid in the TWD II tourney, I can answer this. (Got to H Ancients.)

No. (I debate whether the physical blow even has to land to trigger rabies, as I've managed to get rabies off and not hurt myself when IM'ed.)

On your char display with rabies selected, you see two damages: weapon on top, rabies on bottom.

Fully synergized Rabies is powerful enough to kill handily through NM, and then starts requiring assistance beyond that. Grizzly and a merc were usually enough, but sometimes I went in with Fury.

Rabies does not reset if you bite multiple times. It's bite, wait x seconds, bite again. If there's a lot of enemies, sometimes you can get two or three different sets of infections going. (Bite one enemy, poison spreads to nearby enemies.)

I'd love to discuss more on a Rabies Druid, but I don't know if that would give the druids an unfair advantage. Plus they can get some ideas from the Rabies strategy guide.

As far as the tourney goes, Act II will be the most hated act around. Most skellies develop poison immunity (and when they don't they've got 75% resist), and zombies tend to have 75% resist. Greater mummies aren't as bad, but they've got all those skellies around them. And can't forget about those poison immune maggots, either.

I'm playing a Venom Assassin and a Plague Javelineer in the TWD. They are a lot of fun.

My Venomancer died in that tourney, though, *sigh*

Alas, I won't have time to play in this one, though it is a great idea.

Porius

Just a rules clarification: so we can't use ANY item that adds non-poison elemental damage? Therefore, some uniques would automatically be unnusable?

Anyway, I see your argument about SC, even though I personally see a small taint in characters when they die.

I'm still in.

Anyway, how are we going to end this? When everyone retires, gets stuck or makes mat/Pat? We should come up witha sysytem of point to gauge progress, maybe similar to the TWD style (read: copying ideas from a very well run tourney).

crg

Ekun, I don't play SC, so I'll donate ALL decent items that I find to the prize stash. Even if I find a high rune, or an oh-my-god elite unique.

Just a rules clarification: so we can't use ANY item that adds non-poison elemental damage? Therefore, some uniques would automatically be unnusable?

I assume you have it correct. This will be a very difficult tourney. :teeth:

@ Hrus - Ekun is one of the kings of D2 tourneys, and I bet the rules were pretty near final as soon as he finished the first post.

This sounds interesting, I'd like to play as well.

I once played a Plague Javelin/Poison Javelin 'Zon for a while before I converted her to an LF Zon. It was fun to throw the Poison Javelin, step back and watch all the little flayers explode like popcorn.

Since the Zons are taken, I'll try a Druid. I've no experience with his poison skills. I assume that Poison creeper is acceptable as a supplement to Rabies.

And I love the fact that its SC! Thank you.

Necromancer. Sign me up, Scotty

Alice_Cooper has been created (come on, 'Poison' ?).

One point though: What about elemental-ranged characters like the Necromancer who may use Poison Nova? How is he limited in the equipment he can choose?

I'll get in on this. I seem to be way out in front in the no-repair tourney so I should give the other guys some time to catch up.

Anyway, if assassins are still available i'll take one. Otherwise just sign me up for whatever's available. I'll make do.

EDIT: Errr...I just read that the assassin can't use martial arts (even non elemental ones like TS)...but the elemental dmg restrictions mean most of her best traps are going to be off-limits too. How is she going to do any damage beyond normal diff?

I'll get in if non-elemental martial arts (TS, DT, DF, etc) are allowed for the assassin. I just don't think she would be viable otherwise.

Well I have really only been playing hardcore these days... but then again I have had way too many deaths recently so this could be a nice change of pace. I'd like to try the assassin build.

Hey, thanks for all the feedback!

To tell the truth, I haven't played any of these Poison Builds before, So I gotta admit I don't understand all the damage stuff for each one.
Here's what I'm going for, A tourney where we all get to try new characters. I've played so many LF Javazons, Tesladins, Chain Sorcs, Meteorb Sorcs and straight Physical damage characters that I thought it would be fun to try to get as far as we can using only Poison & some physical damage.
I was going to limit the skills even further but thought it would bum too many people out.
I think we'll all have fun for tryin' something new.

On that note, let's continue the discussion...
I think we should all use the Poison Skill as our primary attack and not use any other offensive skills. No Traps, no Fury, no Corpse Explosion, No Fend. Only the Poison Skills and 'Normal' Attack. Is that a crazy idea? I mean, we might not all make it through Hell, but won't it be a blast to try?

What do ya think?

ALterEgo-As for being a D2 Tourney King...truth be told Kas did most of the work in the old days, I just took the credit

Updated Sign-up Sheet

Sign Up:
Amazon
1. Exarkun
2. Crazy Runner Guy
3. Insane Wayne

Assassin
1. Gaz
2. shermo(If Softcore)
3. AltheKiller

Druid
1. AlterEgo
2. Quickdeath
3. azn_apocalypse

Necromancer
1. doctorgonzo
2. PSYCHO
3. **or** azn_apocalypse

I think we should all use the Poison Skill as our primary attack and not use any other offensive skills. No Traps, no Fury, no Corpse Explosion, No Fend. Only the Poison Skills and 'Normal' Attack. Is that a crazy idea? I mean, we might not all make it through Hell, but won't it be a blast to try?

What do ya think?

Works for me. I had already decided to pass on Fury with my char.

Druid
1. AlterEgo
2. Quickdeath
3. azn_apocalypse

Necromancer
1. doctorgonzo
2. PSYCHO
3. **or** azn_apocalypse

Hmmm...could I take necro instead of druid? I have a bit more experience with them...

Works for me as well. I was going to use all my skills in the shadow tree, hmm, max clawmastery, max shadowwarrior, max venom, a few other points here and there. Might be able to finish the build by level 65.

Works for me. I had already decided to pass on Fury with my char.

And I've already passed on Jab and Crit Strike. I suppose an argument can be made for Crit Strike, since it can be used with a Normal attack. Likewise for Penetrate and Pierce. Can zons use those Passive Attack skills?

So then Blade Fury is a no no? Ah well, I've always wandered what a level 20 Cloak of Shadows was like :uhhuh:

Ohh ohh!! Could i try a Rabies Durid? I'd love to try out one! Please? But must I play it in SC? I mean, i know hell is gonna be hard, but playing it in SC really kinda defeats the point of making a character to Mat/Pat...

Updated Sign-up Sheet

Sign Up:
Amazon
1. Exarkun
2. Crazy Runner Guy
3. Insane Wayne

Assassin
1. Gaz
2. shermo(If Softcore)
3. AltheKiller

Druid
1. AlterEgo
2. Quickdeath
3. Falcon4eva

Necromancer
1. doctorgonzo
2. PSYCHO
3. azn_apocalypse

So we are all full, pending a reply from shermo about playing it Softcore.
Another part of the old tournaments that I'd lilke is occasional char meetings in a TCP game. Is everybody up for occasional meetings?
Question: What version is everybody playing? I'm on 1.10.

Also, I've always allowed trading b/n tourney participants. Of course only stuff found in the game. So, I'll add that to the final rules &regs.

I'll have the revised rules & regs up by the end of the day.

Tourney starts at Midnight!

Son of a, I can't believe I missed the sign up on this by one person. I have been over hosting giveaways all day. I would have loved to do this one as I have never done a poison anything. Oh well, I guess I'll just watch.

Its already 1am here for me, but i assume that it doesn't start on our watches? Or does it? Either way, I'm prepared to play anytime! But i have one question... We can only mule off from our characters, on to an ATMA stash, but not back on even if that character found those items?

Gabriel74-Keep an eye on the thread. If anyone drops out, you'll be the first alternate, but it must happen b4 Midnight tonight. If shermo decides that SC's not his thing, I'll slide you into that Assy spot. The other option is to run parallel to the tourney.

Falcon4eva-I'd just as soon you wait until I get the final rules and regs up before starting. As for muling, I'd say once it's muled off your character it's out of the tourny. That's why I hope people will be up for TCP trading. I'd hate to have good items go to waste b/c one's stash is full. This might be a headache b4 we get to act2 and get our cubes. I'm sure our stashes will be full of chippies until then.

Okay, I've been studying the rabies druid - this will be hard. I can't figure out which merc I should prefer -I'm even considering an Act I NM or ACT III elemental merc!

So the tourney begins at midnight tonight? And no muling back on? Ouch!

I expect that FRW mods will be highly valued!

Shermo pm'd me and because he prefers HC and is going to be gone for like a month, graciously is allowing me to take his spot. So, I guess I am an assasin, It will be my first.

 

[Grisu]

Note: This is the original post from Exarkun in the Tournament thread, part 1.

What's Your Poison Tourney Begins!

Participants

Amazon
1. Exarkun
2. Crazy Runner Guy
3. Insane Wayne

Assassin
1. Gaz
2. Gabriel74
3. AltheKiller

Druid
1. AlterEgo
2. Quickdeath
3. Falcon4eva

Necromancer
1. doctorgonzo
2. PSYCHO
3. azn_apocalypse

Okay...we're off...

Rules & Regs

--Muling off your character is okay, but no muling on or back on. Once an item is on a mule it is out of the tournament
--Trading between Tourney characters is okay
--Any Players X setting is okay
--Once your character reaches the pre-determined clvl, Normal Attack and your Poison skill are the only offensive attacks you can use
--Certain Trees are off limits:
Amazon: Bow XBow Tree
Assassin: Martial Arts Tree
Druid: Elemental Tree
Necro: Curses Tree
--No items, gems, jewels, runes or charms that have any non-Poison elemental damage
--Minions are okay (except Skellies)
--If you have questions or concerns and I'm not around, consult AlterEgo


Let's get goin'!!!!

 

[Grisu]

Note: These are posts #2-20 from the original tournament thread part 1.

WooT! Alright then, time to get off with my rabies durid, Vile_Jaws! Good luck and have fun people!

Behold! The poison Druid, named Curare, walks the Earth. Accompanied by his pet poison creeper, Fido, he will bestride the demonic lands of the Three and crush them between his...uh....drooling jaws. May the minions of Diablo double over in laughter and injure themslves with their mirth.

Seriously, we need a few clarifications on the rules.

1. Do you wish to exclude the Assassin Trap tree as well? Clearly, Lightning and flame traps should be taboo (and CE and DS), but what about blade fury?
2. For necromancers, the offensve bone skills (which are magic) are probably not allowed: teeth, Bone Spirit and Bone Spear? Are the defensive bone skills allowed:Armor, Prison and Wall?
3. Are assassins allowed to use Mind Blast? It seems they should be, even though it does magic damage. The damage is non-lethal and the skill is generally used for stun.
4. Just to clarify: passive skills (or minion auras) that amplify physical damage are okay? So this allows the Zon's Critical Strike, the Druid's HoW, the Sin's Claw Mastery, and the Necro's AmpDam? (Its beautiful how symmetric this toruney is!) These are not lethal skills and most will help the minions more than the main character.
5. Everyone has a tank: Necro's Clay golem (or whatever), Druid's Bear or Wolves, Zon's Valk and Sin's Shadow Master (again, a very symmetric tourney!) Are Assassins allowed to put points in the MA or Traps tree to enhance the elemental skills of their SM/SW as long as they don't use the MA or Trap skills themselves? Its a fairly weak effect, but may well be a realistic strategy later in the game.
6. Cyclone Armor (on the Druid's elemental tree) is a purely defensive skill, but you've excluded it. Necros have Bone Armor, Decrepify,Dim Vision; Amazons have D/A/E and Slow Missiles; Assassins have the massively powerful Cloak of Shadows, plus Fade and MB. If Druids are disallowed Cyclone Armor then they have no defensive skill -other than Ravens (which is puny). So just asking: any chance that Cyclone Armor can be allowed? It's similar to Fade, but less powerful!

Falcon4eva-Welcome Vile_Jaws!! May your Emerald drops be plentiful!!!

Quickdeath-Welcome Curare!!! May your IAS jewels and Sheals be many!!!
Man, it depresses me how little I know about all these char classes! Great questions! So I did a little reading myself and here's my answers:

1. Assassin Traps will be off limits as they are all offensive skills, MA skills can have points in them as long as they are not used as offensive attacks. In other words thay can be used to strengthen minions.

2. Necromancer Curses Tree will be off limits(except AmpDam. See #4). Any Bone skills that are offensive are also off limits. Bone Armor, Prison and Wall are okay to use b/c they cause no damage.

3. Mind Blast is a no-no b/c it causes damage

4. Zon's Critical Strike, the Druid's HoW, the Sin's Claw Mastery, and the Necro's AmpDam will all be allowed b/c thay do add a nice bit of balance. (Good Call Quickdeath)

5. See #1 above

6. As for Cyclone Armor...still off limits. I honestly believe that the multiple minions that Druids are allowed offset the other characters passive skills. Spirit, Vine & Tank are a pretty strong combination.

So let me get this straight: As long as it doesn't cause damage, being a defensive skill, it's allowed? So Durids have access to both trees, but only werewolf and rabies in the shapeshifting? Feral rage can be used, right?

Little update: Vile_Jaws Clvl 10, Last quest completed - Blood Raven.
This is gonna be a toxicating ride!(pun not intended)

Exarkun, one very important and potent question:

"--No items, gems, jewels, runes or charms that have any non-Poison elemental damage"

What about Necromancers that are using ranged skills with no physical attack, IE: Poison Nova? It does not make a difference how much extra elemental damage they have from gems, jewels, runes or charms, because it is not added to the attack damage of Poison Nova. Therefore I would not be able to equip (for example), the Unique Bone Wand (with +2 Necro Skills), simply for the fact that it has cold damage on its physical attack (that I won't be using anyway)...

Necros have Bone Armor, Decrepify,Dim Vision...

Nope, just Bone Armor. Curses are off limits, remember?

Anyway, Pestilence the Necro is lvl 21 and just got the Cube from the Halls of the Dead.

Summons: Clay Golem (6 points), Golem Mastery (2 points)
Poison/Bone Skills: Poison Dagger (5 points), Poison Explosion (4 points), Bone Armor (1 point), Bone Wall (2 points)
Merc: Act 2 prayer merc

His goal right now is to slow enemies as much as possible. Clay Golem helps out a lot with that, and I also gave my merc a voulge with cold damage on it. It's pretty satisfying to see a Hollow One go up against my merc and golem and die before he can even get his arm halfway up into the air for the first attack. :lol:

Some other questions I had.

-Are assassins still limited to claws only? I guess this would help them if they put points into Claw Mastery but I don't see any other reason why they should have this limitation.
-Are Revives allowed for Necros?
-Are Necros limited to only ONE poison damage skill or could they use a mix, such as Poison Dagger as the main killing skill with Poison Explosion as a backup. Both skills only cause poison damage.
-Am I allowed to wear a helm with 5% chance to cast frost nova/charged bolt/etc on it? This causes non-poison damage occasionally, but does not really add damage to your attack, so I was not sure.


I also recommend participants read the Tao of Poison (in the Strat Compendium), if they haven't already. It has a lot of info that I didn't know about before.

1. Assassin Traps will be off limits as they are all offensive skills, MA skills can have points in them as long as they are not used as offensive attacks. In other words thay can be used to strengthen minions.

3. Mind Blast is a no-no b/c it causes damage

I think Mind Blast should be allowed to give the assassin char a little more balance. The damage is so trivial that it can't really be considered an offensive skill. It's more of a defensive skill, to prevent monsters from attacking you. IMHO, I think the limitations on assassins right now put them at an unfair disadvantage to the rest of the tourney characters. They're not allowed to use the Traps tree, MA tree, or Mind Blast. This means they only have Claw Mastery and their SW as damage-dealing skills before level 30. It will be tough for them to advance to lvl 30 with all those limitations.

Vile_Jaws has not really advanced much, only 4 levels more. But he has gotten quite a number of rares, which proves to be useful. His chance for rune and gem drops is one of the worst I've ever experienced. Not even an El rune to spare... This will not bode well, if it keeps up. Hopefully later on runes will be more common. Maybe it is still too early to say as V_J has only just reached dark woods and is level 14. :lol:

Honestly, i'm at quite a loss of what to place...:scratch: I'm certain I'll have to max Rabies and Carrion Vine, so that's 40 down. I'll need WW and Lycan to be high, as well as Oak sage and maybe Grizzly bear. I won't be able to max all of them, but i'm still unsure of which to neglect. Is Grizzly a good tank even with just 1 point, with a lvl 20 Oak sage? Not maxing WW but going for Lycan instead, is that a good choice?

Exarkun- After starting to play my Druid, I can understand the decision not to include Cyclone Armor. I'm dealing with exactly the same questions as Falcon4eva - I have lots of places to put skill points into.

I am sympathetic with the Assassins, though. I have played that build- a venom assassin using only the shadows tree. Mind blast does a percent conversion of monsters and a stun (for a duration that is NOT degraded by being on hell Level.) It also does an incidental amount of magic damage. If they don't get that, they have almost nothing useful to put points into. (You've also missed banning Psychic Hammer on the Shadow Tree - a worthless low-level magic weapon.)

And Feral Rage on the Druid tree is a bit like Frenzy on the Barb tree. We need one point as a prereq to Rabies but we need a ruling on whether its a playable skill. It seems out of line with your original definition - primary offensive skills should be poison.

I am sympathetic with the Assassins, though. I have played that build- a venom assassin using only the shadows tree. Mind blast does a percent conversion of monsters and a stun (for a duration that is NOT degraded by being on hell Level.) It also does an incidental amount of magic damage. If they don't get that, they have almost nothing useful to put points into. (You've also missed banning Psychic Hammer on the Shadow Tree - a worthless low-level magic weapon.)

I agree. In addition to allowing Mind Blast, I also think that the Blade skills (B Fury, B Shield, and B Sentry) should NOT be banned. This is because "venom," the Assassin's main skill for this tourney, will enchant those skills and allow them to do poison damage as well. So really, the blade skills turn into POISON skills when venom is active.

If Amazons are allowed to throw poisoned javelins, then an Assassin throwing poisoned blades isn't that different. Of course, it's up to exarkun to decide on the final ruling.

EDIT: Another question: I found Cathan's Amulet, which has the property Attacker Takes Lightning Damage of 5. Are we allowed to wear such things?

EDIT #2: I just looked on the Assassin FAQ...apparently, Venom does not enchant the Blade skills. But I guess they still could be considered poison skills, if you have some poison charms or poison damage on your weapon.

Hello All,
Let me start by just saying I'm not trying to be a hardarse, and not claiming to be a D2/Poison Guru. The reason I chose this theme for the tourney is so I (we) could see how effective Poison is as a primary attack.
So, I'm hoping that participants will try their builds with that same idea in mind. I'm hoping that we are not going to spend the entire tourney trying to figure out what non-Poison skills we can use and still be within the rules.
I want everybody, myself included, to make an honest effort to create a character that relies on Poison to deal damage. It ain't going to be easy. After trying this if we find that there's no way in hell(pardon the pun)that these characters can get far in the game then I say we make changes to what is allowed. But keep in mind, one of the reasons that I had 3 of each class is to keep everyone honest. If one Druid says the build is not viable but another, or the other 2, say that it is, then that first Druid is gonna have to improve his/her strategy within the predetermined rules.

As for the questions asked recently:

Driuds--Feral Rage, if activated, does not carry over the damage and AR bonus when you switch to Rabies, just the leech and footspeed, so it is therefore usable but not as an attack.

Necros--As long as you are not doing any melee damage, then the +elemental damage to melee attacks would not apply, therefore those items are okay. Also, If it's cool with the other classes, I think Revives are okay. They're usually pretty dopey and don't last long and are almost defensive more than offensive. Combinations of Poison skills is okay (same for Zons)

Assassins--I'm allowing Feral Rage and Revives so I guess Mind Blast is another skill that's more defensive than offensive so I'll say okay. But still saying no to Traps, sorry Sins. Initially I was going to limit to Claws to balance the Zon's only using Javs. I guess I've been a little tough on the Assys b/c I think they are the most viable Poison build. No weapon restrictions on Assassins...anything goes(except for the elemental damge stuff)

Zons--Pretty cut and dried. No revisions

All--% to cast whatever is okay. We'll be hard pressed enough to find gear as it is without having to discard good stuff for a small % chance of something. Other items with elemental damage are off limits. But how about this, each class has a clvl where their Poison Skills come into play (18 or 30), until that clvl there will be no item restrictions concerning elemental damage. For example, Cathans Ammy can be used until those clvls are reached. Does that sound okay to everyone?

Now, I'm gonna go start my character! Good Luck all! I hope this post cleared up alot of questions...

Ekun

Good decisions all around Ekun But I have one more question...sorry

Will druids be allowed to use Hunger for life/mana regen? It decreases damage, but increases AR. Since it would cost 4 skill points to get, I'm not planning on it, but the availablility would be good to know.

In the spirit of the rules I'm going to try to exclusively use the poison creeper, ignoring other vines. If I reach a point in the tourney where LL/ML becomes a critical problem I'll reconsider.

Canis_Rabis is off and running. He's lvl12 at the Cold Plains. Funny how random numbers work - he found 9 chipped rubies, but only 1 chipped emerald and no skulls or sapphires. He did however find a Jewel of Envy and SC of Blight right away.

Weapon selection is really going to be interesting. I've already tossed a couple nice rares due to elemental damage!

Thanks Ekun. We all are all signing up for the vision/objective that you 've stated. But clarity in rules does help us all - most of us can only invest 20 to 40 points in direct poison skills and we don't want to find that our character builds have veered off into an unallowable direction.

Curare (Druid) is lvl 17 about to turn lvl 18 and get access to Rabies. He is at the Outer Cloister with a slvl 10 Poison Creeper that is awesome and lots of fun to play. He has found only one green/gold item- a Death's Guard Sash with CBF! A nice low-level find! All other skills are at slvl 1. Poison Creeper rocks - so far.

Falcon4eva: my analysis is that there is little incentive to put points into Werewolf. Check out the Wereform Speed Calculator - the reduction in frames per Rabies attack from more points in Werewolf is very low - Rabies is 11 fpa at Werewolf slvl1 and drops to 9 fpa at Werewolf slvl20. And because Rabies does not require multiple fast attacks anyway (I think) I plan to invest my skill points elsewhere. Maybe Grizzly.

He has found only one green/gold item- a Death's Guard Sash with CBF! A nice low-level find!

Cool...Pestilence (my necro) found Death's Hand, so if someone finds the sword (which would be completely useless for a necro using PDagger but possibly useful for a druid in low levels), we'd have the full set. I'll keep the gloves in my stash in case we can get the full set together. I also found Sander's Superstition (dropped by Duriel), but I'm keeping that for myself for now. :xsmile4:

EDIT: And thanks to exarkun for answering all of our questions!

Aaron

Stinky_Poo is now clvl19 and just got her Cube. No great finds yet except for a bunch of Gold Find% Grand Charms. I'm runnin around with about +50% Gold Find. This is a good thing since I'm having to stock up on Mana pots and Javs everytime I get into town.
Mainly using Poison Jav. Got it uptp about lvl11. Good Damage. Need Pierce!!! Put 1 pt in Plague Jav so far. Man, talk about a long delay!!!!! I'm gonna have to get a bunch of Tanks and just sit behind them lobbing these things. It's like throw a Plague Jav, pop three chests, throw another Jav, hit a shrine...rinse and repeat.
We'll see how it goes...
Good Luck to all.

Ekun

Well, here's my update for today.

Pestilence
Level 29 Necromancer
Kurast Bazaar WP

Summons: Clay Golem (6 points), Golem Mastery (2), Summon Resist (1)
Poison/Bone Skills: Poison Dagger (5 ), Poison Explosion (8), Bone Armor (1 point), Bone Wall (3 points)
Curses: Amplify Damage (1)
Merc: Act 2 prayer merc

Well, after it was decided that Amplify Damage would be allowed for the necro, things got a lot easier for Pestilence. He pretty much tore through all of Act 2 and most of Act 3. Enemies die so quickly (using players 7) that I can't tell what killed them, my poison or my amp-damage assisted merc.

Using poison is a lot of fun. I have a combination of PDagger and PExplosion going. I'm always using PDagger to stab individual enemies, and PExplosion is a very underrated skill that can kill tightly clustered packs of enemies (like those attacking my necro and merc) almost instantly. 450-550 damage at slvl 8???? That's insane! The only problem with it is that its radius is very limited, so I have to get enemies to chase me over corpses so that I can explode them.

The Poison Necro is a very fun and effective build, in my opinion. This character should have no trouble surviving Normal.

Pointed_Toxin will begin her journey Tuesday night. Sorry for not getting off the blocks so quick, but I took a beautiful young woman to a dance Friday night and was with her and not at my dorm all weekend. As for Tuesday, I have my LAST huge project due that day, and a final in my Ethics class tomorrow. Other than that, I am a free man (except for next weekend, as I have training for a winter camp I'll work at) after that project is turned in on Tuesday. I'll try and get past norm by late Thurday, and maybe even most of NM.

crg

It's me again, this time with a little more progress. I wanna try to report my progress in a "jiansonz-style" way. I like his style.

Vile_Jaws(VJ) has reached lvl 22, very very close to 23 now. He is in A2, and has just acquired the first horadrim artifact, the horadric cube. I'll continue from where I left off in my previous post.

When VJ reached Dark Woods, he was lvl 14. The WP was conveniently beside the underground passage. The tree of inifuss was far off though. Treehead and his gang didn’t prove to be much of a challenge, as VJ was using a two-handed axe. After saving cain from tristram, the use of ID scrolls was unnecessary, unless VJ found charms. Those would be ID’ed immediately. Steady progress was made, and both the countess and the smith were dispatched of easily.

VJ reached lvl 18 during his travels in the jail levels, and rabies was finally made available to him. I just realized how hard it is to use rabies effectively. As it requires 10 mana per bite, careful planning of which monster to bite is required (VJ doesn’t have much of a mana pool. Less then 100). But often I would just bite one monster and the monster would walk away from the mob. It got fustrating for awhile, until I managed to get use to how rabies works.

Andy was a little bit difficult, as using poison against the Maiden of Anguish is rather silly. :lol: But I managed to defeat her, using my poison creeper, dire wolf and merc, with rabies. VJ defeated her at lvl 21, which is kinda scary. This is the first time I’ve used a character at that lvl to defeat andy. I guess full clears of every area in Act 1 helped quite a lot.

Remember how I was complaining about the crappy rune and gem drops earlier on? The rune drops still suck as bad, but the chippies were just raining on me. It got so bad to the point that I had to keep 3 kinds of gems, topaz, diamonds and rubies. I had to sell off all the rest. Even after that, my stash was still full. Rejuvenation potions occupied a huge space too. I had to use the floor to hold the rest of my chippies and some uniques (gorefoot, umbral disk.) I found. I guess there were around 20+ chippies on the floor.

Gambling was fun, as many of my rares came from gheed. He sold me a very nice rare scythe, which I used immediately. My gloves, boots, belt and helm was also supplied by him. He’s a nice guy I suppose. Maybe because I spent a lot of gold there?

Upon reaching Act 2, I had a change of weapon. From the rare scythe to a normal kris/bone shield combo. After that, I rushed straight to dry hills and the halls of the undead. I needed the cube urgently. After getting it(the skeletons there so easy to kill with rabies!), I was cubing like mad. I ended up with 20 or so full rejuvs, one flawless diamond, and a topaz and ruby, IIRC. I found afew more uniques on the way as well. This was due to VJ’s gear, I guess. Notice the % of MF? It adds up to 91%, so I guess it isn’t too shabby.

Posion creeper slvl is 7, while rabies is at slvl 5. This gives VJ a nice damage of 217-296 over 5.6 secs. And that is nice to use indeed. Playing with rabies is easy, any mob that I face gets decimated by the poison. Just rush straight in, bite one of them, hold my ground for half a second, then scram and watch them die. Raddy wasn’t very hard either, without his army. Rabies(along with my merc and wolf distracting them) took care of the skeleton army. Raddy could only blow his puny poison in my face. I taught him a lesson on using poison. Rule 1: Never waste your poison by blowing it, inject it into the victim’s body!

One more thing though; I have some uniques that I do not want to use, but I figured some other people here might want. Umbral disk, Gorefoot, Crushflange, Axe of Fechmar and an artic bindings light belt. If no one wants it, I’ll mule it off already. It’s taking up quite a lot of space in my stash. And that’s the end of my (extremely)long report. Thanks for reading! :lol:

Vile_Jaws(VJ)
Level 22 Rabies Durid
Currently in Act 2
Last quest completed: Getting the horadric cube.
% of MF: 91%

 

[Grisu]

Note: These are posts #21-40 from the original tournament thread part 1.

Status Update after Day 1

Amazon
1. Exarkun--Stinky_Poo--Clvl22--Act2
2. Crazy Runner Guy(Will begin Tuesday, Good Luck on Finals!!)
3. Insane Wayne

Assassin
1. Gaz
2. Gabriel74
3. AltheKiller

Druid
1. AlterEgo--Canis_Rabie--Clvl12--Act1
2. Quickdeath--Curare--Clvl17--Act1
3. Falcon4eva--Vile_Jaws--Clvl22--Act2

Necromancer
1. doctorgonzo
2. PSYCHO
3. azn_apocalypse--Pestilence--Clvl29--Act3

2. Crazy Runner Guy(Will begin Tuesday, Good Luck on Finals!!)

Thanks a lot dude, I'm going to need it.

Also, since Psycho is also in this: I will not be playing any of my TWD characters until Tuesday also.

I can't wait till finals are over, for everyone's sake. Like I posted last week, I really think school work is taking a lot of time away from D2 (as it should) lately, and time away from D2 generally measn time away from the SPF.

crg

I can't wait till finals are over, for everyone's sake. Like I posted last week, I really think school work is taking a lot of time away from D2 (as it should) lately, and time away from D2 generally measn time away from the SPF.

Don't worry about it! I'm sure everyone here will understand and support you morally! Schooling is always more important than anything else! Once your finals are over, you can rock on with D2! (And maybe some liquor, if you're allowed :teeth: ) Don't compromise your studies for gaming. Always do it the other way. (Unless you live off gaming... It's a different story.)

Pestilence
Level 33 Necromancer
A5: Harrogath

Summons: Clay Golem (6 points), Golem Mastery (2), Summon Resist (1)
Poison/Bone Skills: Poison Dagger (7), Poison Explosion (13), Bone Armor (1 point), Bone Wall (3 points)
Curses: Amplify Damage (1)
Merc: Act 2 prayer merc

The remainder of Act 3 and Act 4 were pretty easy, the CS especially.
The battle with Diablo was pretty exciting, however.

First, a warning. Beware! I found out for the first time that Diablo CAN cast Bone Prison on you. And, in my case, it took a long time to break out of it b/c poison takes a long time to cause damage. But for some reason, Diablo didn't attack me with lightning/fire while I was trapped, so everything turned out all right.

Anyway, Diablo spawns in. My initial strategy was hit-and-run: cast amp dmg on him, run up to him, stab him, and then run away to let the poison work. Meanwhile, my merc and golem would be constantly hitting him while slowing him down at the same time. I can run pretty fast b/c I have been wearing Treads of Chton (30% frw) since early Act 2, and I figured that running away from Diablo/around him would nullify the threat from his pink lightning and fire attacks.

I was right about that, but my strategy was ineffective because once I ran away Diablo would turn to my merc and golem and just absolutely slaughter them, usually in one burst of pink lightning. It didn't matter that he was slowed down b/c his lightning attack still did as much damage as it always does. And, since PDagger doesn't do nearly as much damage as an Amp'ed merc, I needed the merc alive to win the battle.

So I decided to tank Diablo to see what would happen. I would still amp damage/stab him but I would not run away. This way, he would attack me but leave my minions alone. I had no experience tanking with a Necro before, so I had no idea how effective I would be. It turns out that the battle became ridiculously easy after I used this tactic. Diablo's lightning/fire barely did any damage at all to me; I was able to heal myself solely with red potions. I had about 200 health, the merc's prayer aura, max block (75%), around 50 fire/lightning resistance, and a recastable Bone Prison that absorbs 65 damage. Plus, Diablo was slowed down a bunch, so that probably helped too.

Anyway, I learned that Necros can tank Diablo after all!

Oh, and Diablo dropped this:

Eagle Bane
Burnt Wand
...yada yada yada...
+** to Mana
Cold Resist +33%
20% Faster Cast Rate
+2 to Life Tap (Necromancer Only)
+1 to Bone Spear (Necromancer Only)
+1 to Bone Wall (Necromancer Only)
150% Damage to Undead
Level 1 Lower Resist (67/67 Charges)!!!!

Act 5 awaits...

Confessions of a Rabid Druid

My update:

Curare, Lvl 20, Lut Gholein WP
Skills: Poison Creeper 10; Rabies 2; Lycanthropy 2; Werewolf 1 (2), Oak Sage 1, Spirit Wolves 1; Dire Wolves 1; Ravens 1 (2), Feral Rage 1
() = slvl after +skills from my rare Wolf Head.

Andariel (players 8) wasn't very impressed by my poison -as a matter of fact, most of the skeletons were nonchalant about it as well. Rabies is a weapon of mass destruction for demons and animals though, especially when they are packed close together.

So here are some questions and observations.
1. My poison Creeper minion has 33-34 poison damage over 4 secs (more with mutliple monsters) and my rabies contagion is 96-173 poison damage oevr 4.4 seconds. When a group of monsters is catching Rabies and standing on the mats of the creeper, do the poison damages add? Does one cancel the other? Do they each maintain their own duration or do they add or average? I've read the Tao of Poison, but combo of minion and player damage isn't mentioned.
2. At 10 mana per bite Rabies is mana intensive. I may need to do the unthinkable: add points to Energy!
3. Once I bite, there is not much for my druid to do for the next four seconds. Biting again (within the same monster clump) before the clock is up is futile, it doesn't even restart the 4.4 second clock.
4. There are many equipment mods and charms that I need not worry about. IAS barely affects Rabies at all. Of course, no elemental damage. + poison damage isn't much help either, it won't be spread with rabies. Mana and life leech is a low priority because my physical damage will never be high. +Dex is important only if I go for max block with shield - Rabies apparently has no AR (I think.) +Strength is not a priority either.
5. Normal should be doable - I suspect we'll all run into trouble somewhere in the middle of NM.

1. My poison Creeper minion has 33-34 poison damage over 4 secs (more with mutliple monsters) and my rabies contagion is 96-173 poison damage oevr 4.4 seconds. When a group of monsters is catching Rabies and standing on the mats of the creeper, do the poison damages add? Does one cancel the other? Do they each maintain their own duration or do they add or average? I've read the Tao of Poison, but combo of minion and player damage isn't mentioned.

I think it's like this. If an enemy is poisoned, a second poison attack hitting it (no matter where it came from, minion, merc, or player) either (1) has no effect or (2) cancels the first poison attack and starts an entirely new poison timer.

This is determined by the poison dmg per frame of the two attacks. If the pdmg/frame of the second attack is higher than that of the first, it will do (2): cancel the first attack. If the pdmg/frame is the same or lower as the first attack, it will be (1) no effect.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong on this.

EDIT: @Quickdeath: For your equipment mods, enhanced damage or +min/max damage might work out. Werewolves hit pretty fast, so you'd be getting the benefit of more physical damage for each hit. And if you continue to hit your enemies after you use rabies, then you wouldn't be standing around for 4 seconds either while the poison spreads. I would be looking for enhanced dmg stuff as well, expect the necro is restricted to using daggers, which deal pathetic physical damage. Druids don't have that limitation.

Well,
Stinky_Poo is about half way through Act3. Clvl25. Only good finds are the 2 Cathan's Rings and just found Sanders Gloves. A couple ITH's, a couple ETH's and that's about it.
Startin' to get used to Poison Jav. Don't love the 26 or so second duration it takes to kill anything, but what can you do.

Good Luck All,

Ekun

The tourney has its first Slayer! :xsmile4:

Act 5 was easy, except for the Throne of Destruction. The Death Lords really hammered away at my merc and golem, and managed to kill the merc a couple of times. That was the only difficulty.

At some point a monster dropped this:

Plague Gutter
Halberd
Two-Hand Damage: 19 to 73
Durability: 28 of 55
Required Dexterity: 47
Required Strength: 75
Required Level: 15
Polearm Class - Normal Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10 Expansion
Item Level: 39
Fingerprint: 0xdfdd7150
+62% Enhanced Damage
+1 to Maximum Damage
Fire Resist +6%
Adds 1-3 cold damage over 3 seconds
47% Damage to Undead
+71 to Attack Rating against Undead

Very useful for the merc; I might upgrade it to exceptional when i get the runes to do so. The cold damage is something I need to assist the golem in slowing down enemies, and the +dmg to undead is nice b/c my poison dmg isn't really effective against them.

During Act 5 there were a few times where I used my newly-found wand with Lower Resist charges on it (have it on weapon switch), but it's often a tough call whether to keep the monsters amped, so the merc can do more damage, or hit them with LR, so my poison can do more damage.

Baal was ridiculously easy. Pestilence and his minions entered the Chamber, immediately cornered Baal by the wall, and proceeded to hack away at him. He just stood there and took it. He didn't teleport, send in his double/tentacles, he didn't even MOVE. In fact, I didn't quaff a healing potion or feed one to my merc during the entire battle. I'm not sure what happened, but none of his attacks did any damage while he was slowed down. It might be a bug. In any case, he fell easily and dropped Sander's Boots! Yes! Another useful item for a necro!

So btw all of us, we have Sander's Boots, Gloves, and Wand. Maybe we can arrange something so that we can put the entire set together!


Pestilence
Level 43 Necromancer
A1 NM

Summons: Clay Golem (6 points), Golem Mastery (2), Summon Resist (1)
Poison/Bone Skills: Poison Dagger (12), Poison Explosion (18), Bone Armor (1 point), Bone Wall (3 points)
Curses: Amplify Damage (1)
Merc: Act 2 prayer merc

Time to introduce my new poison zon: Emerald Lin

Emerald is version 1.10. Currently she's level 28, resting on the Kurast Docks. Her companion is Mizan the Defiance merc, level 27. I've been playing p8 all the way, doing full clears. Skill selection has been very simple. I saved my first 5 points and have been pumping Poison Javelin at level 6, then Plague Javelin. Currently:

1 Dodge
1 Avoid
19 Poison Javelin
1 Lightning Bolt (prereq)
7 Plague Javelin

Aside from 1 point in Pierce, every future point will go into maxing both Poison skills. Back around level 10, I saw that no p8 normal monster could withstand a single Poisoning Javelin, not even Poison-resistant skeletons. Also, I learned that it's better to throw a poison javelin using Shift-click, and deliberately miss, to create a poison trail and lead the monsters through it. Much more efficient! By mid-Act 2, level 4 Plague Javelin (boosted by synergy) also was sufficient to kill most p8 monsters, much more quickly. No fancy tossing technique here, just hit em in the face, and watch the cloud expand! There's a casting delay there, but it's tolerable as Plague J gets stronger.

My weapon of choice is a low quality javelin. Cheap to repair, and totally sufficient for its purpose. Plus, I'm amused by the total disparity between my normal damage, and posion damage. Click for screenshot.

My mission is to equip as much MF as possible. After I chuck a javelin or two, I begin picking through the battleground for loot, checking urns/rocks etc... as the monsters die off beside me. Even if I absorb a few blows while sorting for treasure, a couple reds solves the problem. It's not too dangerous, and saves a lot of time. Mizan rarely needs babysitting, so far he's a capable tank. His armor and helm are also stuffed with topazes, and he scores a lot of kills as the poison saps their life. I found a decent rare voulge for him, and stuffed the two sockets with Elds, creating a formidable weapon against the undead, perfect for Act 2.

Even in Normal, p8 drops are fun, especially with decent MF (Emerald has 160% MF, Misan has additional 56%). Here's a nice fat drop from a maggot lair chest. Gotta love those, for some quick gambling cash at least. I've found about a dozen uniques so far, but nothing useful. A boss unraveller dropped the Nokozan Relic. I love this amulet for low level characters, too bad it's illegal because of the 3-6 fire damage! :lol: No big loss though, I'd rather wear my 20% MF amulet. And I like the fact we can't use other elemental damage, it makes for interesting item selection.

A stack of plague javelins took care of Duriel. I kept Mizan alive with a steady stream of reds and purples. No problem.

I understand that this is a SC tourney, but I'm placing stat points more HC style, into vitality. I don't see this charcter requiring too much dex or strength. Plus, I really hate dying, and hope to avoid it altogether. But even if I do, I'll still finish her, it'll just be less satisfying.

Emerald Lin, level 28, Act 3 Kurast Docks

So I started playing my Assassin, Deathblade, and almost got killed in the den of evil, so decided to stop and try again later this week. Currently level 6.

Baal was ridiculously easy. Pestilence and his minions entered the Chamber, immediately cornered Baal by the wall, and proceeded to hack away at him. He just stood there and took it. He didn't teleport, send in his double/tentacles, he didn't even MOVE. In fact, I didn't quaff a healing potion or feed one to my merc during the entire battle. I'm not sure what happened, but none of his attacks did any damage while he was slowed down. It might be a bug. In any case, he fell easily and dropped Sander's Boots! Yes! Another useful item for a necro!

nope, not a bug. when slowed, via weapon or clay golem, Baal's attacks (namely, his freezing snowplow and his fire nova) do no damage because while slowed the AI can't decide on a new attack. by the time it gets around to casting one, it's already busy thinking about the next so even though the graphic for the attack displays it's not really there. A necro with a moron & clay golem can take out Baal while eating a pizza

Quick question:

Charges - aye or nay?

Aside from 1 point in Pierce, every future point will go into maxing both Poison skills.

Don´t forget that you need 2 points for its prerequisites, too...


What is the main plan against poison immune critters? Merc?



Folks, watch out! Give Wayne an amazon and he´ll conquer the world...

Status Update after Day 2

Amazon
1. Exarkun--Stinky_Poo--Clvl25--Act3
2. Crazy Runner Guy(Will begin Tuesday, Good Luck on Finals!!)
3. Insane Wayne--Emerald Lin--Clvl28--Act3

Assassin
1. Gaz--Deathblade--Clvl6--Act1
2. Gabriel74
3. AltheKiller

Druid
1. AlterEgo--Canis_Rabie--Clvl12--Act1
2. Quickdeath--Curare--Clvl17--Act1
3. Falcon4eva--Vile_Jaws--Clvl22--Act2

Necromancer
1. doctorgonzo
2. PSYCHO
3. azn_apocalypse--Slayer Pestilence--Clvl43--Act1 NM

Looks like most of us got a chance to play this weekend. I'm having a good time playin' an odd build for a change...

PSYCHO-On Charges, charges on an item are subject to the same "no elemtal damage" rule. Also, no use of charges for skills that are off limits. But, of course, having off-limits charges on an item doesn't mean you have to discard it, just don't use the charges...does that make sense?

Ekun

On Charges, charges on an item are subject to the same "no elemtal damage" rule. Also, no use of charges for skills that are off limits. But, of course, having off-limits charges on an item doesn't mean you have to discard it, just don't use the charges...does that make sense?

Thanks for the update Exarkun. But, sorry, I have a question!

Curses other than Amp Dmg are off limits for necros...does this mean that wands with charges of lower resist/attract/etc are off limits for them too? Are such wands allowed for other characters to use b/c they don't have a curses tree?

Curses other than Amp Dmg are off limits for necros...does this mean that wands with charges of lower resist/attract/etc are off limits for them too? Are such wands allowed for other characters to use b/c they don't have a curses tree?

Nope. The off limits skills are off limits for all. Non-Necro chars can use AmpDam, but that's it for curses. If for some odd reason, another class decides to use a bow, any bow with bow skill charges are off limits, so on and so forth...

I have finally had a chance to start. My Assassin Strychnine is now lvl 16 and just finished the countess. I also found my first unique, The Gnasher. Oddly enough, I needed that for my grail. The Crushing Blow and Open Wounds on it are great. Still don't know what poison will be like. I still have fourteen more levels to go before I get to actually use poison damage. Right now I am just a very weak assassin.

Status Update after Day 2

Amazon
1. Exarkun--Stinky_Poo--Clvl25--Act3
2. Crazy Runner Guy(Will begin Tuesday, Good Luck on Finals!!)
3. Insane Wayne--Emerald Lin--Clvl28--Act3

Assassin
1. Gaz--Deathblade--Clvl6--Act1
2. Gabriel74
3. AltheKiller--Tact--Clvl24--Act3

Druid
1. AlterEgo--Canis_Rabie--Clvl12--Act1
2. Quickdeath--Curare--Clvl17--Act1
3. Falcon4eva--Vile_Jaws--Clvl22--Act2

Necromancer
1. doctorgonzo
2. PSYCHO
3. azn_apocalypse--Slayer Pestilence--Clvl43--Act1 NM

Just adding myself to the list

Amazon
1. Exarkun--Stinky_Poo--Clvl25--Act3
2. Crazy Runner Guy(Will begin Tuesday, Good Luck on Finals!!)
3. Insane Wayne--Emerald Lin--Clvl28--Act3

Assassin
1. Gaz--Deathblade--Clvl6--Act1
2. Gabriel74
3. AltheKiller--Slayer Tact--Clvl46--Act1 NM

Druid
1. AlterEgo--Canis_Rabie--Clvl12--Act1
2. Quickdeath--Curare--Clvl17--Act1
3. Falcon4eva--Vile_Jaws--Clvl22--Act2

Necromancer
1. doctorgonzo
2. PSYCHO
3. azn_apocalypse--Slayer Pestilence--Clvl43--Act1 NM

Played a lot more today and took Tact through normal. Did some Baal runs to level and ended up finding a Vipermagi Skin and Goldstrike Arch so it looks like for now at least I'll be a Sniper Assassin.

So far I have 10 Mind Blast (which I relied heavily on until level 30), 5 Claw Mastery, 5 Burst of Speed, 13 Venom, and 11 Shadow Master. The SM rocks, and with BoS, Venom, and a Blessed Aim merc I am deadly from afar.

Curare is now Clvl 25 in Act 2. Rabies is at slvl 8, synergized by Poison Creeper at slvl 10. I'm still on Players 8 though, so the going is slow. Most monsters take 3 to 5 seconds to die. But I just bite and walk on by.

Question for azn_apocalypse: Noticed your mention of the prayer aura on your merc. Unusual choice! So, why did you choose the prayer merc?

 

[Grisu]

Note: These are posts #41-60 from the original tournament thread part 1.

Question for azn_apocalypse: Noticed your mention of the prayer aura on your merc. Unusual choice! So, why did you choose the prayer merc?

Well, being a necro, an Act 2 merc makes sense b/c of the aura (benefits minions as well as the character). Given a choice of Act 2 mercs, I usually get the Defiance merc, but Prayer makes more sense for Pestilence b/c of his play style. Pestilence's play style is to constantly run around stabbing one monster after another, b/c it doesn't do any good to stab the same one after it's already been poisoned.

Thus, Pestilence is usually not within melee range for the monsters to attack him, so I decided it would be better for him to heal up while he runs from enemy to enemy than to have higher def for the split second where he is in melee range. His base defense is terrible anyway...with a str of less than 45 at the moment, he cannot wear any of the higher def armors. So he wouldn't benefit from Defiance that much anyway.

Blessed Aim would not have made sense b/c, having a lot of dex and points in PDagger, I have tons of AR and don't need more.

Even when I get to Act 2 NM, I might not even switch mercs. I've found the Prayer to be very helpful. I might possibly switch to Thorns merc, but definitely not one of the others. Might won't help me out (I don't deal physical dmg), and HF will get rid of corpses that I need to cast Poison Explosion.

Note to Exarkun: I used my wand of Lower Resist during Act 5 on several occasions b/c I didn't know it was against the rules, but it's immediately going off my character and into the stash the next time I play Pestilence.

Amazon
1. Exarkun--Stinky_Poo--Clvl22--Act2
2. Crazy Runner Guy - Alexis clvl 14 - Act 1
3. Insane Wayne

Anyway, I got some time earlier today between classes, and I started the chick. She's doing a lot of poison damage now (lvl 8 or 9 Poison jav), however, I'm just not happy the damage/second isn't going up. Poison Jav adds two seconds/slvl, and thus I could have some HUGE poison damage, but because the duration is so damn high, it would do squat. Anyway, I can' wait to get PJ at clvl 18.

crg

Status Update after Day 3

Amazon
1. Exarkun--Stinky_Poo--Clvl28--Act3
2. Crazy Runner Guy--Alexis--Clvl14--Act 1
3. Insane Wayne--Emerald Lin--Clvl28--Act3

Assassin
1. Gaz--Deathblade--Clvl6--Act1
2. Gabriel74--Strychnine--Clvl16--Act1
3. AltheKiller--Slayer Tact--Clvl46--Act1 NM

Druid
1. AlterEgo--Canis_Rabie--Clvl12--Act1
2. Quickdeath--Curare--Clvl17--Act1
3. Falcon4eva--Vile_Jaws--Clvl22--Act2

Necromancer
1. doctorgonzo
2. PSYCHO
3. azn_apocalypse--Slayer Pestilence--Clvl43--Act1 NM

Time for another update!

VJ has reached lvl 27, and is currently chilling in act 3. I was determined to take him through the rest of act 3 today as well. I took 4 hours for the rest of act 2, so I guess it isn’t that bad.

After I was done and over with dry hills, far oasis was next. Boy, did I have much fun in the maggot lair! As you all know, for some characters, that place is just plain irritating. But not for VJ! Any rabies druid will know what I mean. Since rabies spreads by itself, the monsters lined up there were just so easy to kill! I’d take one bite, attack a bit to try to leech any lost life, bite again, and watch those behind die as well. Definitely entertaining.

Lost city was no challenge; any boss mob that VJ came across was easily dealt with. The viper temple was another fun place. Most of the rooms in there are usually crowded with snakes, skeletons, embalmed, unravelers and beetles. When I mean crowded, I DO mean crowded. I’d just rush in and take a bite, and watch the poison spread like wildfire. Seriously, it spreads very quickly. Rabies seems to be such a cheat, with its damage and range of damage.

When I was cruising through arcane sanctuary, I found out something interesting. Those lightning spirals are supposed to be immune to poison, and yet, when I bit it with rabies, it still took damage. I don’t know if it was my rabies damage, or my wolf’s attack. But I’m starting to think that rabies isn’t exactly poison damage, more like open wounds. Might be doing some testing with it later on.

Duriel himself was irritating. Whatever I did, duriel just kept chasing VJ, ignoring my merc. But he took the chance to attack my oak sage, creeper and wolf when he could. Maybe it’s because of my “steel†sword? Cause of the % of open wounds. I ran circles around him and he ignored my merc. I decided to go toe-to-toe with him, and see what happens. I could tank him, but whenever my spirit flew close to the fight, it’d die and I’d lose life. I tried to cast my spirit far away, but it still came floating by. When it finally stayed at one spot, it was much easier to deal with duriel. He dropped me crap though.

VJ’s rabies is now lvl 10, deals 590 – 697 poison damage over 7.6 second. It’s pumped up by a lvl 7 poison creeper, which does 23 – 25 poison damage over 4 seconds. VJ’s MF is up to 104% now, but still the number of magic and rares dropping hasn’t improved much. Merc has zero MF on him, but he does good damage. I’m planning to get VJ a barb merc to replace the current prayer one, since VJ needs a good tank.

I have a question though; is feral rage usable? As in, like using a normal attack. I’ve been using feral rage for a fair amount of time, and I’m still unsure if it’s allowed. Let’s say, I see a monster or two. Instead of using rabies to attack, I use feral rage to get rid of the two of them. Is that allowed? Or would I have to use rabies on the two monsters?

All in all, so far nothing has been too hard. I’d be expecting some trouble later on though.

Vile_Jaws(VJ)
Level 27 Rabies Druid
Currently in Act 3
Last quest completed: The Seven Tombs.
% of MF: 104%

PSYCHO-On Charges, charges on an item are subject to the same "no elemtal damage" rule. Also, no use of charges for skills that are off limits. But, of course, having off-limits charges on an item doesn't mean you have to discard it, just don't use the charges...does that make sense?

Ekun

Make complete sense to me, Ekun

[highlight]Alice_Cooper - lvl 14 - Act I[/highlight]
Completed Den Of Evil and Blood Raven. Now running Rakanishu for more levels then progressing to Cain. No Uniques but a lot of useful rares. Starting to equip MF gear and very much starting to worry about Duriel.

Congrats Al on getting our first Slayer

I have a question though; is feral rage usable? As in, like using a normal attack. I’ve been using feral rage for a fair amount of time, and I’m still unsure if it’s allowed. Let’s say, I see a monster or two. Instead of using rabies to attack, I use feral rage to get rid of the two of them. Is that allowed? Or would I have to use rabies on the two monsters?

Based on prior posts, I would think it's only allowed until you get Rabies. IIRC, once you reach your "poison skill" you may only use that, or a normal attack.

That said, I still wonder about Hunger. It decreases damage, but increases AR - main purpose of course would be LL/ML.

I played Canis_rabis a bit, moving only to lvl16. Best find was a Nef from the Countess. I can imagine knockback being a decent mod for a rabies build.

After I was done and over with dry hills, far oasis was next. Boy, did I have much fun in the maggot lair! As you all know, for some characters, that place is just plain irritating. But not for VJ! Any rabies druid will know what I mean. Since rabies spreads by itself, the monsters lined up there were just so easy to kill! I’d take one bite, attack a bit to try to leech any lost life, bite again, and watch those behind die as well. Definitely entertaining.

Lost city was no challenge; any boss mob that VJ came across was easily dealt with. The viper temple was another fun place. Most of the rooms in there are usually crowded with snakes, skeletons, embalmed, unravelers and beetles. When I mean crowded, I DO mean crowded. I’d just rush in and take a bite, and watch the poison spread like wildfire. Seriously, it spreads very quickly. Rabies seems to be such a cheat, with its damage and range of damage.

Yes, rabies was a wonderfully fun skill.

Curare
Clvl 27 Act III
Last quest completed: Golden Statue

I must agree with Falcon4eva. Rabies rocks. I loved it in the Arcane Sanctuary - bite the first guy in line, turn around and run back and watch them all turn green one by one. The crowded rooms in Tomb of Tal Rasha were not a problem -my druid just ran around biting scattered people. Five seconds go by and the floor is littered with bodies. My Merc goes around poking people and thinks he's doing the killing -this helps his leveling.

Duriel, though, was bad news. I was killed several times before I realized that I needed to turn off my poison creeper -the creeper was getting to Duriel before I was (as well as after my attacks) and apparently was delivering his 40 poison damage in 4 secs, wiping out my 600 poison damage in 6 secs!

Azn-apocalypse: I've been agonizing over the same choices of aura mercs. No auras seem to help this character. I got a defiance merc in Act II, but I wonder wheter a might merc will help more when I get to nightmare. My Grizzly/wolves will benefit (also my Ravens, lol! They don't benefit from Defiance!) I've seriously considered an Act I Rogue or an Act III fire merc.

Slayer Pestilence
Level 51
Act 2 NM, Lut Gholein WP

Pestilence killed NM Andy today. However, score one for the Maiden of Anguish, as I was slow and careless with the TP's, and because of that she did manage to kill me once. I don't think it ever would have happened in HC, since I would have been a lot more careful.

Anyway, I upgraded the merc's rare halberd into a bec-de-corbin, and it now does 21 to 133 damage, with a +40% bonus against undead. With amp damage on, the damage is amazing at this stage of the game.

Other goodies I found:

Plague Chain
Belt
Defense: 8
Durability: 16 of 16
Required Strength: 25
Required Level: 22
Item Version: 1.10 Expansion
Item Level: 39
Fingerprint: 0x4ab52de4
+8 to Strength
+48 to Life
+9 to Mana
+35% Enhanced Defense
Lightning Resist +11%
79% Extra Gold from Monsters

The Patriarch (unique Great Sword), self-repairing rare crowbill w/2 sockets, decent damage (once again, I find items that my char in the other tourney would have benefited from, sigh...)

The battle with Pittspawn Fouldog (Superunique) on Jail Level 2 was simply epic. There were no less than five TP's back to town to buy potions/resurrect my merc, and I must have cast about 200 bone walls over the course of the battle, which Fouldog and his minions would knock down almost as fast as I could cast them. Bone wall is getting to be pretty useful to block off those pesky ranged attackers for awhile. I just wish the walls would not die so quickly!

Slayer Tact is now level 50 and has just entered Act3 NM. I've been playing on players 1, and will probably wait until the Bloody Foothills to catch up level-wise. Things have been easy with my beefed up SM as a tank. I especially love it when he uses Death Sentry . Basically I Mind Blast the crowd and pick away at them. With BoS I shoot really fast, and I'm now considering possible options for socketing my Goldstrike Arch, as it will probably be my end game weapon. I'm thinking I'll use the Amn Rune I found, but I also found a Dol, and the Monster Flee mod could be beneficial. Then again there's a simple Eth rune which could help in the long run, but I think I'll be okay with my BA merc.

Edit: As for Hunger, I would say no, mostly because it is comparable to Cobra Strike which is banned for the assassins.

Played a lot more today and took Tact through normal. Did some Baal runs to level and ended up finding a Vipermagi Skin and Goldstrike Arch so it looks like for now at least I'll be a Sniper Assassin.

Wow, nice finds! Especially the Goldstrike Arch! That's an end-game weapon for sure. I didn't know it was possible for it drop in normal though...do you remember which monster you got it from?

Well it looks like there is no :embarassed: smiley, so just pretend for now

For whatever reason I call my bow a goldstrike arch just out of confusion. In actually its just a Blastbark that I upgraded to a gothic bow. It's been a crazy for me with finals this week, so cut me some slack here buddy

Here she is if you wanna check her out

Blastbark
Gothic Bow
Two-Hand Damage: 21 to 107
Required Dexterity: 118
Required Strength: 95
Required Level: 33
Bow Class - Slow Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10 Expansion
Item Level: 60
Fingerprint: 0xecb38278
+5 to Strength
+114% Enhanced Damage
3% Mana stolen per hit
+1 to Amazon Skill Levels
Required Level +5
+2 to Exploding Arrow (Amazon Only)

Sorry for the mixup

it looks like Real Life is dominating my past week, and with giftmas shopping and work I'm pretty much out of time to play so far. I'll start when I can but if I end up taking any longer I may have to drop out.
Sorry, if I would have known I would be so busy I wouldn't have joined.

Status Update after Day 4

Amazon
1. Exarkun--Stinky_Poo--Clvl29--Act5
2. Crazy Runner Guy--Alexis--Clvl14--Act 1
3. Insane Wayne--Emerald Lin--Clvl28--Act3

Assassin
1. Gaz--Deathblade--Clvl6--Act1
2. Gabriel74--Strychnine--Clvl16--Act1
3. AltheKiller--Slayer Tact--Clvl50--Act3 NM

Druid
1. AlterEgo--Canis_Rabie--Clvl16--Act1
2. Quickdeath--Curare--Clvl27--Act3
3. Falcon4eva--Vile_Jaws--Clvl27--Act3

Necromancer
1. doctorgonzo
2. PSYCHO--Alice_Cooper--Clvl14--Act1
3. azn_apocalypse--Slayer Pestilence--Clvl51--Act2 NM

Update. Strychnine is now lvl 26 and just finished act 2. I have always hated act 3 so it will be a struggle to do. My character is rather boring without Venom yet. I am really looking forward to lvl 30. Although I have to say, as someone who has never played a sin before, the shadow warrior is pretty nice, she is a good tank. I can't wait to get the shadow master.

Whooo....Act 2 NM is taking a lot longer than I expected. Whoever said earlier that it would be the toughest act wasn't kidding.

The undead in Act 2 are not poison immune, but their resistance to it is high enough to cause me problems. My poison explosion does about 4500-5500 listed damage. That's pretty good for NM difficulty, right? But I use it on the undead in the tombs, and their health bars barely move. I have to rely on the merc (still wielding the same weapon) to kill everything, which takes awhile when there's greater mummies resurrecting stuff all the time.

I switched over from the Prayer merc to the Holy Freeze merc. It turns out that with HF, monster corpses don't shatter all the time (just sometimes), which leaves me with some corpses to cast PExplosion on what I need to. The survivability of my party is also greatly increased. The problem right now is kill speed...too slow for my liking.

Haven't found any more great items, but I did just bump up my merc's MF about 110%, so hopefully I will begin seeing the returns soon.

Pestilence
Level: 54
Act 2 NM, Lost City WP

Not much to report. Stinky_poo is at Clvl31. Runnin' through Act5. No great finds for me, but I did find a Bonesnap. Not sure if any of the Druids are interested. It doesn't really fit with Rabies, but the resists are nice.
Anyhoo, it's up for trade...

Curare is a Clvl 32, but just starting Act IV. I have been on P8, which has has an effect on my playing speed, I guess. I am on MF +91% I have now found two (2) Death's Guard Sashes as well as a Snakecord! Also, the usual common set items, Cathan's this and Isenhart's that, a Shadowfang (unusable because of elemental adders) and a Sander's Superstition.

Curare has a Defiance Merc, an Slvl 2 Grizzly Bear, an Slvl 1 Oak Sage and an Slvl 10 Poison Creeper. What strategy for summons are the other druids pursuing? When you get to NM, what Merc will you pick? I'm leaning towards Might and wondering about HoW over Oak.

Azn-apocalypse: Your account on Act II NM is very interesting. What players setting are you on?

Azn-apocalypse: Your account on Act II NM is very interesting. What players setting are you on?

I ran Act 1 NM and the first half of Act 2 NM on players 6, but I downgraded it to players 5 because I was getting frustrated with fighting the undead (see previous post). After I made the players # switch, things seemed to speed up significantly.

I made several other changes today too, in terms of equipment. Pestilence's old weapon and shield are gone. Before, he was using a 2-socketed kris with an emerald and Tal rune (+115 poison dmg), and a rare gargoyle head with high block % but no +skills. I had been using these items since Normal diff, but after struggling through Act 2 I decided it was time for a change.

I switched the weapon to a Kris of Grinding (+43 maximum damage, based on char level), and then switched the shield. However, after I screwed up the Ancient's Pledge runeword by putting the runes in a 3-socket Artisan's shield (DOH!), I settled for a +29 all resists large shield purchased from Fara in Act 2. The weapon switch was a good thing, b/c now Pestilence can deal out physical damage (as well as poison). While it's not an amazing amount of damage, he can at least help out his merc in battles now, instead of standing around and waiting for poison to take effect like he used to.

The efficacy of my party in combat has gone up significantly since the switch. The undead in the tombs may be resistant to poison but their hit points (skeletons, zombies, ghosts) are generally low, so a few amped hits from my kris is enough to kill them. I even felt confident enough to go into some of the False Tombs and kill Ancient Kaa the Soulless (who wasn't a problem at all).

I ended up with a ton of gold and gambled this from Elzix: :xgrin:

Corruption Noose
Amulet
Required Level: 30
Item Version: 1.10 Expansion
Item Level: 53
Fingerprint: 0xa3a6c6c3
+17 to Life
+61 to Mana
+5 to Light Radius
5% Bonus to Attack Rating
+2 to Poison and Bone Skills

Great ammy, all of the mods are quite useful for me. (except light radius, of course).

I also killed Duriel today, putting Pestilence into Act 3. The battle wasn't that exciting. I was never in danger of death (although I died again, to Radament, again b/c of carelessness...this brings the total deaths up to two). I just kept TP'ing into Duriel's chamber until he would attack my clay golem instead of me or my merc. After he killed the golem, I would just resummon it and he would continue to attack it. All this while me and my merc were bashing the overgrown maggot. After repeating this sequence several times, and summoning clay golem over 30 times, Duriel died.

Slayer Pestilence
Level: 58
Act 3 NM, Kurast Docks WP

Great ammy, all of the mods are quite useful for me. (except light radius, of course).

Is that the role-playing aspect of things? "What a pity. I was beginning to enjoy the darkness." Otherwise, why is that not useful?

I find that I often have good use for some extra light in dark indoor areas, unless I play a sorcie with Cold Armor or an amazon that uses Slow Missiles to scout for enemies.

 

[Grisu]

Note: These are posts #61-80 from the original tournament thread part 1.

Status Update after Day 5

Amazon
1. Exarkun--Slayer Stinky_Poo--Clvl36--Act1 NM
2. Crazy Runner Guy--Alexis--Clvl14--Act 1
3. Insane Wayne--Emerald Lin--Clvl28--Act3

Assassin
1. Gaz--Deathblade--Clvl6--Act1
2. Gabriel74--Strychnine--Clvl26--Act2
3. AltheKiller--Slayer Tact--Clvl50--Act3 NM

Druid
1. AlterEgo--Canis_Rabie--Clvl16--Act1
2. Quickdeath--Curare--Clvl32--Act4
3. Falcon4eva--Vile_Jaws--Clvl27--Act3

Necromancer
1. doctorgonzo
2. PSYCHO--Alice_Cooper--Clvl14--Act1
3. azn_apocalypse--Slayer Pestilence--Clvl58--Act3 NM

Well, Stinky_poo made Slayer last night. The battle with Baal was rough. Merc did most of the damage it seems. I don't get it my Poison Jav is up to about 5000 damage but the duration is at 46 seconds...DOH.
Anyhoo, will start NM this weekend.
I'm wondering what type of jav/spear I should be trying to get. Not real familiar with anything but LF Javvies.

Any suggestions? What should I be gambling for?

Ekun

I don't get it my Poison Jav is up to about 5000 damage but the duration is at 46 seconds...DOH.

I'm mid-way through Act 5, and my level 21 Plague Javelin does about 6800 damage over 11 seconds. I've maxed both Poison skills already. Get out of Poison Jav ASAP and put all future points into Plague until it's maxed. I've delayed developing all my other skills to get big poison damage, but it's worth it.

Anyhoo, will start NM this weekend.
I'm wondering what type of jav/spear I should be trying to get. Not real familiar with anything but LF Javvies. Any suggestions? What should I be gambling for?

In my opinion, the only critical mod for your javelin is + skill. You can shop for +3 Jav skill javelins, or find +3 Amazon-specific javelins in the field. I'm using a plain maiden jav with +1 skill until I find something better. But even that puny +1 still gives about 700 more poison damage. Gambling for +skill javs is a long shot, and you will end up with lots of javs with other elemental damage that makes them illegal. I would save gambling money for other types of gear.

Any suggestions? What should I be gambling for?

Wayne's hit the nail on the head, really. Gamble on anything but Javs. +Skills are great, as would be Increased Stack Size or Replenishes Quantity (or both!). Having Replenishing javelins will save you in repair costs (as it will only be 1 gold), which will, in the future, free you up to spend more money elsewhere. :xgrin:

Poison on Act Bosses

Exarkun's account of his battle with Baal has caused me to wonder about something. My Rabies is currently at about 2000 average over 10 or 11 seconds - and I had plenty of trouble killing Normal Diablo. In fact all the Act Bosses have been surprisingly tough to kill.

In addition to the posion resistance, is it possible that Bosses have a drain effectiveness factor, or something like that, that reduces the poison length? I did not time it, but Rabies turns a character green with a red oscillating aura - and I don't believe my infections of Normal Diablo lasted more than a few seconds.

Has anyone else noticed this with Act Bosses? Or am I hallucinating?

Canis_Rabis has made some progress I stopped today before entering the palace. A1 and A2 have been no problem. Beetles were troublesome, but I was getting a bit too careless and taking way too many hits. I actually should have switched to my 1H/shield combo for some blocking. :uhhuh:

I've been playing at P8 with a big 'ol 2H weapon. I'm up to a decent rare maul with CTC Amp Dmg - pretty nice. Rabies is really fun, especially when standing in the doorway of rooms swarming with monsters. I have rabies at slvl8 synergizied with slvl10 Creeper.

I'm taking quite a few risks with this char - rushing into unknown areas, circling around and herding monsters - stuff like that. Since I normally play HC, I'm really enjoying the mental freedom of possible death, and going on with the game.

I have about a mule-worth of chippies in the prize stash, but haven't found much itamz wise. Just one set & one unique, nothing to get too excited over. My best gear has come from gambling so far.

Canis_Rabis, lvl25 Act 2, Palace

Curare has a Defiance Merc, an Slvl 2 Grizzly Bear, an Slvl 1 Oak Sage and an Slvl 10 Poison Creeper. What strategy for summons are the other druids pursuing? When you get to NM, what Merc will you pick? I'm leaning towards Might and wondering about HoW over Oak.

I'll use dire wolves most of the time & grizzly against bosses. I hope to use poison creeper the entire game. Oak Sage will get most of my play, but I may put 1 into HoW to help my merc & summons beat the poison immunes. I also plan to stick with my A1 fire rogue.

said:
As for Hunger, I would say no, mostly because it is comparable to Cobra Strike which is banned for the assassins.

Agreed. I probably wouldn't use it anyway. Vines are much cheaper.

Long time since I last posted about VJ’s progress, so its time for another long report!

VJ is currently a Slayer, and is chilling in nightmare act 1. I’ll pick up from where I stopped from before. Act 3… Ahh, the dense jungles of Kurast. A favorite for some, a hated place for most. Personally, I totally hate the starting parts of act 3. Namely the jungles. However, VJ enabled me to feel otherwise. With rabies, mobs of fetish or flayers were dead within seconds. The jungle routes, for the first time, were easy to handle. I came across a very useful unique on the way to the temples.

I took on some of the false kurast temples, and much to my disappointment, none provided challenge. VJ was laying the smack down in the temples when his weapon nearly broke. I thought it might be fun for a challenge, to not go town to repair. Needless to say, rabies ate the little monsters up from the inside. Battlemaid Sarina didn’t stand much of a chance even with a mob like that and a near broken weapon. I found a unique morning star, which I promptly sold away for more gold.

There was nothing that could stop VJ in his path, and even Mephisto bit the dust without putting up a decent fight. He gave me crappy drops, but they still were 6 rares, and that gave me somemore gambling funds. Act 3 was over in the same day I last posted, but I was too lazy to post a new update. I did gamble a very very sweet shield for VJ during his stay in act 3.

Dire Tower
Bone Shield
Defense: 10
Chance to Block: 60%
Durability: 40 of 40
Required Strength: 25
Required Level: 18
Item Version: 1.10 Expansion
Item Level: 32
Fingerprint: 0x21d4914e
+20% Increased Chance of Blocking
Fire Resist +38%
Lightning Resist +38%
Cold Resist +38%
Poison Resist +52%
Attacker Takes Damage of 1
10% Faster Hit Recovery
30% Faster Block Rate
Socketed (2: 2 used)

Socketed with 2 perfect diamonds for those sweet resists!

Act 4… Well, lets just say that I sort of hit a brick wall in the form of Diablo. The whole act wasn’t hard at all, it was a pushover. Hellforge netted me a not-so-useful ort rune. Oh well, I wasn’t expecting much from normal’s hellforge anyway. The infector of souls did force me fight with brains as well though. Their unbelievably high poison resists meant that I couldn’t just bite and tank. I had to pull 2 to 3 venom lords away at a time. The others were easy though. Didn’t have to think when fighting. Diablo, however, was a different story.

Within a second, my oak sage and grizzly died. My merc joined them soon. I was left with my vine, which didn’t help me in anyway at all. I came up with a strategy of biting once, running all over, biting again and running again. It took lots of time, town portals and potions, but it was the surest and safest way I could come up with. VJ tanked Diablo himself when Diablo was on the verge of dying. After Diablo died, he dropped me crap. Not surprising to me anymore, even with 114% MF.

In my previous post, I said I was expecting some trouble later on. I guess that trouble was in the form of undead act 5 monsters. The starting areas of act 5 was the calm before the storm, as later on VJ found it very hard to kill those defiled warriors and their like. I immediately replaced my act 2 merc with a barb merc for VJ. I figured using physical attacks against poison immune foes would be good, thus the change. VJ also needs the tank, and more meat shields wouldn’t hurt anyway.

There’s this funny thing that I came across in the infernal pits, and I wondered if anyone else came across this as well… Clicky. How do I attack something I can’t get close to? :scratch:

Since hellforge dropped me a perfect amethyst, I decided to try out crafting. I crafted a safety amulet, and to my surprise, I got a rather good amulet. See it here. Nice overall mods, and very useful. Gambling also snagged me a nice saintly circlet of luck, with 53 def and +28% MF. I swapped it for my rare full helm, and felt a nice change. I also gambled a nice rare light plated boots, with MF to boot.

The undead defiled warriors obstructed my course through act 5, but my barb merc helped out greatly. The ancients… They couldn’t even kill my merc, so, ‘nuff said. The greatest pain in the butt at the throne was killing the 2nd wave of monsters. Achmel the Cursed is immune to poison, and lucky for me, my merc deals good non-poison damage. This is what happened to Achmel. The rest were manageable, but Lister’s pack required more brain.

Baal himself was the longest battle I’ve ever fought so far. I took him on players 8, for the exp and challenge. And a challenge did he give. My oak sage constantly died, and I was so annoyed that I refused to summon it while fighting baal. My bear could last for 20 seconds before dying, and my merc was the one who kept baal distracted. This time round I was unable to use the same tactic I used against Diablo, thus I had to come up with another. I stocked up on red and blue potions, cast my grizzly beside baal, bite him once and observe.

If my bear was gonna die soon, recast. If merc was gonna die, feed potions immediately. If rabies wore out, bite him again. I assumed that baal would keep attacking my merc and bear, while letting rabies damage him. I was wrong. Baal teleported, cloned and summoned tentacles, which easily distracted my tanks. All the while, his life bar was very very slowly depleting. Much too slow for my comfort. But I couldn’t do anything to accelerate it. After a long grueling fight, he finally died. He dropped me demonhide gloves, which I thought would be useful, if they weren’t ethereal. :rant:

Next stop would be the moo moo farm. I guess I’ll get lots of dead contaminated beef within seconds. And i apologize for the extremely long report, it's just a bad habit of mine to write lots.

Slayer Vile_Jaws(VJ)
Level 49 Rabies Druid
Currently in NM Act 1
Last quest completed: Eve of Destruction.
% Of MF: 133%

Curare, clvl 43 Druid, ACT I NM Cold Plains WP ... and fun to play! Thanks, Ekarkun.

Found a +2 to Rabies Wolf Head, So Rabies is at slvl 22 with Pcreeper at slvl 11

I ramped down to P3 for ACT IV and V because my clvl was getting too high above the mlvls for effective leveling. The Ancients were a breeze but we struggled with Baal. I've put 3 points into Grizzly and he's starting to kill.

Still churning on merc selection. I still am leaning towards Might merc, but what do I do about inevitable PI, PoisI monsters? Elemental weapon on merc, I guess. But its hard to keep an Act II Merc spare weapon in stash, because it takes up 8 boxes. And it would be a very slow kill. So I'm churning.....

...but what do I do about inevitable PI, PoisI monsters? Elemental weapon on merc, I guess.

Yes, I think elemental damage for the merc will be a possible soution. Try to get elemental damage on a circlet as well as a good weapon. One hit with Prevent Monster Heal will help a lot.

But its hard to keep an Act II Merc spare weapon in stash, because it takes up 8 boxes.

It may only take up 3 boxes, if it´s a javelin!

Curare, the Rabies Druid is now clvl 52; Act2 NM, Dry Hills WP.

Curare showed NM Radament who is the poison boss, and Radament dropped a gold cudgel: Dark Clan Crusher! +2 Druid Skills, 17-61 damage with +200% damage to demons; +150% damage to undead and +25% to AR! What a fortunuate drop. I need this item for my grail - in fact I've never even studied this item before. A great fit for my druid at this time as it helps with everything: Rabies damage, Lycan duration, Oak sage life, Grizzly stats, pdam, etc.

Curare is equipped with the following uniques and greens: Hawkmail, Swordback Hold shield (on switch), Dark Clan Crusher, Death's Guard or Snake Cord belts, and Chance Guard Chain Gloves. Crushflange sits in reserve with its CB mod but I'll probably just mule it off. My Might Merc has Twitchthroe armor.

Highest rune found: Dol.

Status Update

Amazon
1. Exarkun--Slayer Stinky_Poo--Clvl41--Act2 NM
2. Crazy Runner Guy--Alexis--Clvl14--Act 1
3. Insane Wayne--Emerald Lin--Clvl28--Act3

Assassin
1. Gaz--Deathblade--Clvl6--Act1
2. Gabriel74--Strychnine--Clvl26--Act2
3. AltheKiller--Slayer Tact--Clvl50--Act3 NM

Druid
1. AlterEgo--Canis_Rabie--Clvl25--Act2
2. Quickdeath--Curare--Clvl52--Act2 NM
3. Falcon4eva--Vile_Jaws--Clvl49--Act1 NM

Necromancer
1. doctorgonzo
2. PSYCHO--Alice_Cooper--Clvl14--Act1
3. azn_apocalypse--Slayer Pestilence--Clvl58--Act3 NM

Managed to play a little this weekend, So, Deathblade is now level 8. Yes, not a massive update, but I hope to play some more this week.

WOW!!
Talk about a long, drawn out fight. Stinky_Poo just put down NM Duriel. It was the toughest brawl she's had yet. Low IAS + Getting frozen = long sucky fight.
Merc kept on dyin', ran out of Revive money and had to sell a skull...DOH.
Finally killed him and he drops a Unique Long Bow...That's like my 2nd gold item the whole tourney...DOH
Anyhoo, on to Act III...

Just thought I should let you guys know that I won't be around until the 10 January. I haven't quit the tourney, I just won't be able to get online, So, expect some decent progress to be posted in two weeks or so.

Quite a day for Stinky_Poo.
Just killed Mephy and decided to do some Trav runs and L. Kurast Chest Popping for some Gambling money...
Here's what she found:

Shael Rune
Lum Rune
Tal's Mask
Ravenfrost...DOH! Cold Damage!
Unique Stiletto
Unique Gladius

Probably going to make a Rhythm Shield when I find a good 2 soc shield. Maybe make Smoke Armor since I don't have anything good to wear now. The rest go into the prize pot. The leech wouldn't do me much so if anyone wants to trade for the Tal's Mask let me know...

Stinky_Poo
Clvl55
Act4 NM

Be very careful when you're fighting Diablo. If you poison him and are in the Pandemonium Fortress when he croaks, you don't get quest credit.

I got bitten by this in A4H only 'cause of the need to keep resupplying reds and my Rabies was more effective than I thought.


Someone mentioned that it seems like Rabies doesn't last as long on Act bosses, and I'd have to agree with that observation. Something like 1/4 the time on hell diff.

Maybe Diablo wears Demon Skin of Amelioration.

I finally reached lvl 30. Venom kills much quicker than I was before. I am in Act IV. Shadow Master seems pretty cool, but she is all over the place on skills.

I have beaten Diablo now. I am running on 3/4 of the Arctic set right now. Furs, mitts, and binding. I also found an amulet with +1 to shadow skills. I am hoping that Venom's poison damage starts going up a lot more. I am still doing under 200 poison damage. That isn't going to cut it later on in the game.

Amidst the holiday rush, I haven't had much time to play this week, but I do have some earlier progress to report.

Emerald has beaten Radament in Act 2 NM. I'm finally running into some normal p8 monsters that can withstand my fully synergized lvl 21 Plague Javelin, with 6600 damage over 11 seconds. In Normal, only p8 Rot Walkers could survive one hit.

So far in NM, there are several types of undead that require 2-3 hits, which isn't too bad. I could lower the player setting, but for MF purposes I want to keep it at p8. Emerald's primary focus is MF. More than any other character, I've wanted to find the Gull Dagger for full-time use. I can't imagine a better zon build for that purpose. Simply throw javs, then weapon-switch to the dagger as the poison + merc do the job.

Success! I did find the Gull, and there's a weird little story about that. I couldn't find it at all in Normal. After I killed Baal, I set up for a Normal cow clear. As I entered Tristram to get the leg, I thought "Wouldn't it be great to find the Gull now?" I chucked a jav at a goat pack with Griswold. They all died quickly, and the goat boss dropped the Gull! Not even 20 seconds after thinking about it! It freaked me out. Wow.

I also found the Chance gloves, but they are only 28% MF. Still better for MF than any rare, but eventually I'll want +skills on the gloves. I've cubed 5 Perfect Topaz. As soon as I find a 3-socket helm and 4-socket armor (and make 2 more P topaz), Emerald will have 404% MF for chests and most kills. I'll have 429% when I find a Shael and make a Rhyme. Then I want to get another 168% on the merc, for a total of 597% on merc kills. That would rock.

Emeral Lin, level 54, Act 2 NM Rocky Waste

Christmas Eve Status Update

Amazon
1. Exarkun--Slayer Stinky_Poo--Clvl61--Act5 NM
2. Crazy Runner Guy--Alexis--Clvl14--Act 1
3. Insane Wayne--Slayer Emerald Lin--Clvl54--Act2 NM

Assassin
1. Gaz--Deathblade--Clvl6--Act1
2. Gabriel74--Strychnine--Clvl30--Act5
3. AltheKiller--Slayer Tact--Clvl50--Act3 NM

Druid
1. AlterEgo--Canis_Rabie--Clvl25--Act2
2. Quickdeath--Slayer Curare--Clvl52--Act2 NM
3. Falcon4eva--Slayer Vile_Jaws--Clvl49--Act1 NM

Necromancer
1. doctorgonzo
2. PSYCHO--Alice_Cooper--Clvl14--Act1
3. azn_apocalypse--Slayer Pestilence--Clvl58--Act3 NM

Well, there's our update. I guess X-mas has got everbody busy. Hope it goes well for all!

Stinky_Poo got an early Christmas gift from a Travincial Council Member...

Golden Ceremonial Javelin!!!!!

I guess Stinky_Poo was a good girl this year!!!

Happy Holidays to All!!!!!!

Ekun

 

[Grisu]

Note: These are posts #81-100 from the original tournament thread part 1.

Happy holidays, everybody. Well, it's been a while since I last updated Pestilence...but he is making progress. He has just killed Mephisto in NM and will start Act 4 next.

Current progress is good. New equipment includes a "Lore" Full Helm (+1 all skills) and a "Rhyme" Large Shield. Before making these runewords, I was thinking to use a necro-specific shield for the "Rhyme" runeword, but I got impatient waiting for a two-socketed one with decent +skills to drop. Finally I just gave up and shopped the appropriate socketed items in Act 2 Normal. It was much faster that way.

I've added a lot more MF to my party (not nearly as much as Insane Wayne, though) and because of that I've recently found a lot of great items in my travels.

-Spineripper (unique Poignard) - very useful. Great physical damage and +1 to all necro skills bonus as well.
-Hwanin's Justice (the set Bill) - equipped on my merc, replacing the rare bec-de-corbin.
-Fungal Grand Charm (+1 to poison/bone skills)
-Blackhorn's Face (Unique Death Mask)
-Bartuc's Cut Throat (Unique Greater Talons, only 150% ed tho, the lowest possible value)
-Ginter's Rift (Unique Dimensional Blade)
-Headstriker (Unique Battle Sword)

With my current equipment, I have +5 to poison/bone skills overall. PExplosion damage is now 10K-12K over about 12 seconds, PDagger is around 5K to 6K, I think. Not bad. My resistances are somewhat low, though. Cold resistance is negative...but at least I have the CBF mod, given by the Rhyme runeword. Act 4 should be tough, I think. Lots of Undead knights and Venom Lords, which are poison-immune in NM. We'll see how well I can fare against them.

Just a short update to keep our thread prominently displayed.

Curare, the rabies druid, is at clvl 57 and has entered Lower Kurast in NM Act 3. Curare has been playing with MF = +118% with the Merc at an additional +48%; but I've cut Curare's MF back to +**% to use an attractive amulet instead. The ammy has +1 to Shape-shifting skills (i.e., Rabies, WW, Lycan), +23% to pois resist, +7% to fire resist and +54 to life - given all the spider and undead pits I've been crawling through, that ammy was too much of a temptation.

Despite that, I'm in a lull in my MF. I found a Bverrit's Keep Tower Shield and not much else.

Merry Christmas to everyone! :xsmile4:

I might be crazy, but...

Does a Holy Freeze Merc's Aura have any effect on Poison Damage or Duration?
It seems that that my poison damage is more effective when my Merc isn't around...

Anyhoo,

Stinky_Poo is rolling along. Just about to enter Act1 Hell at Clvl69. Been doing a bit of runnin' around and MF'ing. With her new rhyme shield she's up over 300% MF. Need to find some real gear to tackle Hell Diff. Wearing 4 PTopaz Armor and a 3 PTopaz Winged Helm, rare MF gloves and boots and Baal dropped me IK Belt so she's wearin' that as well.
Haven't found alot considering the kit she's wearing...

Best of Luck,

Ekun

Ekun

Canis_Rabis is moving slowly along... far behind our esteemed leaders...

He's defeated Duriel and entered Act 3. No real issues so far, but no great finds yet either. I really hope to put some time into my druid this week.

Canis_Rabis, lvl28, Act 3

Just a small comment to all:
I am excitedly following your updates about your progress in this tourney as I am a big fan of poison damage and very interested in how viable it is.

I would have taken part in the tourney myself but at the moment I am spending my spare time on another game featuring nasty poison damage... :xsmile:

I know it's heresy for the D2 gods, but I can't help it...

Curare: clvl 63 Rabies Druid
WP: Pandemonium Fortress NM (Act 4)
Top Rune: Dol
Avg. Poison Damage: 8,200 over 14 seconds

Mephisto dropped crap: a Sigons belt and rares

Theory on Poison damage duration: There is a NM and Hell level reduction factor on monsters' cold duration (time when there motion is slowed). I believe that the chill duration is reduced by 1/2 in NM and 1/4 in Hell. I suspect that this factor is also being applied to poison damage duration.

Any comments, anyone? NDT, do you have any experience with this?

Theory on Poison damage duration: There is a NM and Hell level reduction factor on monsters' cold duration (time when there motion is slowed). I believe that the chill duration is reduced by 1/2 in NM and 1/4 in Hell. I suspect that this factor is also being applied to poison damage duration.

Any comments, anyone? NDT, do you have any experience with this?

From my experience with Rabies, I think the only reduction occurs on Act Bosses. I had a 9 second or so infection duration, and I'm pretty sure it would run for 9 seconds. I did quite a few Eldritch/Shenk runs in getting ready for my death at the hand of the Ancients, so I got to see lots of Baal's Minions spread the love. Though if there is a duration reduction, I'd suspect it's 3/4 and 1/2 of duration. (Akin to the prefixes "of Remedy" and "of Amelioration.") That would be pretty brutal on top of half the monsters suddenly having poison resists. (A quick and non-comprehensive scan of AS shows about half the monster classes having at least 10% res when they had no poison resists in normal and nightmare.)

Sorry, I am more a fan of the visual effects of poison than of the statistics behind it.

Nevertheless another thought on the topic: Those who experience the duration reduction, do you also experience a damage reduction? Or does the decreased duration actually lead to an INcreased damage rate per sec? Maybe to help overcoming the monster resistances in the higher difficulties and to encourage the use of poison?

Just speculation, although it would be nice.

Nevertheless another thought on the topic: Those who experience the duration reduction, do you also experience a damage reduction? Or does the decreased duration actually lead to an INcreased damage rate per sec? Maybe to help overcoming the monster resistances in the higher difficulties and to encourage the use of poison?

My experience with my characters and reduced duration (without resorting to number crunching): When an object is poisoned, a damage per second number is calculated. Reduce the number of seconds and you'll reduce the total damage output.

So having reduced times + resists would just hurt.

Continuing the conversation on poison duration:

My character currently has about 8000 damage over 14 seconds but what I observe on NM monsters that I bite is that they do do not remain green for 14 seconds. Its hard to be scientific when you're fighting, but it appears to be about 7 seconds. I have also observed this on the blunderbusses in the Palace Chambers -whom I remember to have no resistances to any elemental damages. And other participants have commented about poison duration appearing to be shorter.

The most advanced characters in the tourney are just starting to hit Hell difficulty -and if there really is some reduction in duration it should be more noticeable there. It should be instructive to hear from them.

After Christmas Status Update

Amazon
1. Exarkun--Slayer Stinky_Poo--Clvl70--Act1 Hell
2. Crazy Runner Guy--Alexis--Clvl14--Act 1
3. Insane Wayne--Slayer Emerald Lin--Clvl54--Act2 NM

Assassin
1. Gaz--Deathblade--Clvl6--Act1
2. Gabriel74--Strychnine--Clvl30--Act5
3. AltheKiller--Slayer Tact--Clvl50--Act3 NM

Druid
1. AlterEgo--Canis_Rabie--Clvl28--Act3
2. Quickdeath--Slayer Curare--Clvl63--Act4 NM
3. Falcon4eva--Slayer Vile_Jaws--Clvl49--Act1 NM

Necromancer
1. doctorgonzo
2. PSYCHO--Alice_Cooper--Clvl14--Act1
3. azn_apocalypse--Slayer Pestilence--Clvl58--Act4 NM

I guess everyone (myself included) is busy with other stuff.
It's all good. Hope everyone has a great New Year!

Ekun

I am proud to announce that Pestilence has attained the rank of Champion. :xsmile:

He ran Act 5 NM at players 6, except the Ancients, which he ran at players 1 to save my sanity. Baal was a cakewalk as usual, and again, he couldn't move throughout the entire battle. To be fair, there were some tough parts of Act 5. The toughest part of the Act was facing the bugged poison javelin vipers in the Halls of Vaught. The Halls of Vaught (where Nilithak lives) is only a small area, but going through it my merc was killed (and resurrected) fifteen or twenty times. Luckily I didn't die.

I did die a couple of times in the Frozen River, which had Witches and Gloams. Probably the toughest combination I've seen for a Necro to face. At any given moment when I turned a corner, I would be suddenly overwhelmed by red magic balls and bolts of lightning. They came from EVERYWHERE! I have decent lightning res but it didn't seem to matter. And, since the Witches/Gloams are all ranged attackers, they were unaffected by Holy Freeze and my golem's slowing effect, and had a nasty habit of hovering over water and shooting at me so my party could not get to them. I tried to put up Bone Walls between my party and the Gloams, but the darn lightning pierced right through the bone walls (and hit me)! Like I said, I died a couple of times in the process of clearing that area. Good thing I'm in SC, not HC.

I am expecting Hell difficulty to be tough. I'm not sure which monsters will have poison immunity but I'm sure there will be a lot of them. Hell difficulty has always been a problem for me. I have actually never Pat'd or Guard'ed any character in D2, ever. Hopefully this will be the first.

Items found since last update:

-Cloudcrack Gothic Sword
-The Fetid Sprinkler Holy Water Sprinkler
-Radament's Sphere Ancient Shield. Great shield. High def (266), 56% block, adds poison dmg to attack/chance to cast poison nova. It would be nice for this tourney! Unfortunately it's not useful for my character, but it's open to trade!

Pestilence
Level 73
Act 1 Hell, Rogue Encampment WP

So, I had some time today while my wife was working and played strichnyne for awhile. She is now level 43 and she just finished normal. Baal dropped crap, even with 102% MF. I still don't have very good gear. Artic Furs and binding and chance guards. I am using a strength runeworded claw. I may just run Baal until I get some decent gear. I still haven't decided which merc to use. Currently I am using an Act V one with a malice runeword.

It doesn't seem that my poison damage is really increasing. Right now its 285-305. This seems very low for an end game skill. Its already slvl 14 and there are no synergies. I remember someone saying at the beginning that assasins would have a good advantage in this tourney, but I am still not sure why.

Champion Pestilence is currently running around in Hell difficulty Act 1, on players 2. He has been doing full clears of each area, including the optional cave areas (except for the Pit, he skipped it and will come back later when he has more MF).

I'd say Hell difficulty is pretty much a match for Pestilence's abilities. The monsters are tough while not being completely overwhelming. That being said, I have died a few times. Most of them were careless deaths early on(like standing too close to a cold enchanted monster dying). I imagine they could have been avoided. Anyway, I have now lost count of my total # of deaths, though I'm trying my best not to die.

Early in the Act I had some major troubles killing the undead (skeletons and zombies). Since they were resistant to poison they would take FOREVER to kill. Then I found two uniques, Heart Carver (Rondel) and Gravepalm (Sharkskin Gloves). The Heart Carver deals quite a bit more physical damage than the Spineripper I had equipped before, but loses the +1 to necro skills. The Gravepalm has +190% dmg to undead, which is a huge amount of dmg. I debated what equipment to use for awhile, but finally decided on Heart Carver combined with Gravepalm, along with rare boots with dual 35% fire/cold res. I lost about 35 MF changing my equipment but I feel it is worth it for the bonus in my killing speed/resistances. My resistances are still awful though, all four resists are negative, though it is close to zero for all four.

My party is fairly effective against undead now. In the Tamoe Highland I was killing returned archers (poison immune) by myself fairly quickly while the merc/golem worked on other monsters.

Bone Wall is by far my most useful spell. It has been a lifesaver for my party on countless occasions. Basically, whenever I face packs of ranged attackers (archers, disfigureds), I spam Bone Walls all around them, sealing them off. Strangely enough, my merc's melee attack can penetrate through the Bone Wall, but the monsters' ranged attacks cannot, and will be blocked by the wall. What a useful thing to know! Bone Wall is also helpful in narrow passageways (ie the Caves) to block off multiple packs of monsters from getting to me, so I can deal with one pack at a time.

The Countess dropped a Shael rune and an Eld rune. Yes, an Eld rune...there should be a law against her dropping such crap...

I made it all the way up to the Outer Cloister, and will probably attempt to kill Andariel next update.

Champion Pestilence
Level 77
WP: Outer Cloister (Hell Act 1)

It doesn't seem that my poison damage is really increasing. Right now its 285-305. This seems very low for an end game skill. Its already slvl 14 and there are no synergies. I remember someone saying at the beginning that assasins would have a good advantage in this tourney, but I am still not sure why.

I agree that it's not true that assassins have an advantage in this tourney.
In fact, Venom is pretty weak because it doesn't have any synergies, like you said.

However, Venom is advantageous over the other poison skills b/c it is much more fast acting. 0.4 seconds for the poison dmg to take its full effect, compared to 10 seconds and above for the other poison skills in this tourney. 300 poison dmg over 0.4 seconds (which is what you deal now) is 750 poison dmg per second. That's about equal to what Pestilence's PDagger does. Now, if you have a fast enough attack speed that you keep the monsters constantly poisoned, I think you will kill very fast, since you will be doing considerable physical damage with hit.

EDIT: Don't forget, you can also use any weapon, including ranged weapons, with Venom, which is unlike the other poison skills.

Alexis is now clvl 29 and in Act 4 Norm, and I hope to clear norm before I go to bed tonight.

The first three acts were a breeze, and as usual, act bosses were tough (I even died against Meph. Ouch! His orb REALLY hurt)).

Anyway:

Alexis: Amazon clvl 29 Act 4 Norm

crg

Continuing the conversation on poison duration:

My character currently has about 8000 damage over 14 seconds but what I observe on NM monsters that I bite is that they do do not remain green for 14 seconds. Its hard to be scientific when you're fighting, but it appears to be about 7 seconds. I have also observed this on the blunderbusses in the Palace Chambers -whom I remember to have no resistances to any elemental damages. And other participants have commented about poison duration appearing to be shorter.

The most advanced characters in the tourney are just starting to hit Hell difficulty -and if there really is some reduction in duration it should be more noticeable there. It should be instructive to hear from them.

I have not noticed any difference in poison dmg length from the listed duration. The skill says 12 seconds and it lasts for 12 seconds. I have tested this in a number of locations, in NM and Hell difficulties.

Happy 2005 Status Update

Amazon
1. Exarkun--Champion Stinky_Poo--Clvl75--Act1 Hell
2. Crazy Runner Guy--Alexis--Clvl29--Act4
3. Insane Wayne--Slayer Emerald Lin--Clvl54--Act2 NM

Assassin
1. Gaz--Deathblade--Clvl6--Act1
2. Gabriel74--Slayer Strychnine--Clvl43--Act1 NM
3. AltheKiller--Slayer Tact--Clvl50--Act3 NM

Druid
1. AlterEgo--Canis_Rabie--Clvl28--Act3
2. Quickdeath--Slayer Curare--Clvl63--Act4 NM
3. Falcon4eva--Slayer Vile_Jaws--Clvl49--Act1 NM

Necromancer
1. doctorgonzo
2. PSYCHO--Alice_Cooper--Clvl14--Act1
3. azn_apocalypse--Champion Pestilence--Clvl77--Act1 Hell

I have not noticed any difference in poison dmg length from the listed duration. The skill says 12 seconds and it lasts for 12 seconds. I have tested this in a number of locations, in NM and Hell difficulties.

I agree. My Plague Javelin effect lasts exactly as long as listed. Also tested in NM and Hell.

 

[Grisu]

Note: These are posts #101-120 from the original tournament thread part 1.

Hooray! I accomplished two of my main goals with Emerald. First, she became a "Conqueror" (Champion really, but no deaths!) I'm happy about that, it really adds to my appreciation of playing her. Secondly, I was able to cube enough topaz to create a state of Magic-Find-Mania for Emerald and her merc. I did complete full clears of Normal and NM on p8.

By Act 5 NM, Emerald had +464% MF, and +657% on merc kills!!!
Emerald's full-time MF sources:
100% - Gull Dagger
96% - Jeweler's Full Plate Mail of Absorbption
72% - Artisan's Crown of Sorcery
35% - perfect Amulet of Luck
20% - Milabrega's Orb shield
28% - Chance Guards
24% - Ring of Fortune
25% - Ring of Fortune #2
30% - Goldwrap Heavy Belt
25% - Rare boots with good fire resist
9% - 2 charms

Merc's MF sources:
25% - The Meat Scraper Lochaber Axe (pretty good weapon also)
96% - gemmed Gothic Plate
72% - Artisan's Crown

To maximize my MF chances, I switched to the Gull/Milabrega's immediately after throwing a javelin. Why Milabraga's shield instead of "Rhyme"? Well, all my MF couldn't buy me a damn Shael rune. I had to cube up from Amns/Sols and didn't make "Rhyme" until late in Act 5 NM.
I ensured that Mizan the Holy Freeze merc would score most of the kills by keeping the valk at level 16 (at level 17 she gets a major weapon upgrade).
I unsummoned the valk whenever a boss was ready to die, and let Mizan do his job. Emerald's resists were low, so I kept her safe with lvl 16 Decoys and lots of running about. It wasn't easy to finish NM without dying, I had several NDEs with Gloam lightning, Curses, etc... The difference was all the stat points I put into vitality (currently 200, with 62 points saved)

I won't bore you with a complete list of the sets/uniques I've found. Suffice to say that 657% MF yields a ridiculous amount of yellow, green, and gold. A few of my favorites:

Stone of Jordan (can't wear it! illegal for this tourney! can be used to craft a socket though)
Bartuc's Greater Talons (196% ED)
Trang-Oul's Claws (+25% Poison damage) (Lancer's are still better for zons)
Saracen's Chance amulet
Dangoon's Teaching (woohoo, an elite set item)
Blackhorn's Face Death Mask (also illegal, but good for merc)
ethereal Rockstopper (great stats! cold 28%, lightning 40%, fire 39%, 214% ED)
The Diggler (combined with Crushing Blow, it's an awesome boss-killer)

Now that Emerald is in Hell, I need to scale back the MF a little. Mizan in particular is too delicate. I have an Iceblink for him, but I still need to babysit and pull him back often. I'm attempting an elevated player setting, between 3 and 8 depending on monster type, and I bumped the valk to level 17. I never did find Titan's Revenge, so I'm relying on a Lancer's throwing spear and Lancer's gauntlets to get my poison damage to about 15,000 over 13.4 seconds, good enough for p8 Fallen. My MF is still a whopping 388%, and my cold/light/fire resists are in the 20-30 range, thanks to 15 resistance charms, a nice rare belt, "Rhyme" in a Barbed Shield, and a Coral Amulet of Fortune.

Champion Emerald Lin, level 77, Act 1 Hell, Stony Field

@ Insane Wayne:
Wow, players 3-8 in Hell? Amazing for a char with such limited skills! Just out of curiosity, how do you deal with Poison Immunes? (For Pestilence, he uses AmpDmg.)

Alexis moved up to clvl 35 last night, and is sitting at the Frigid WP in act 5.

crg

@ Insane Wayne:
Wow, players 3-8 in Hell? Amazing for a char with such limited skills! Just out of curiosity, how do you deal with Poison Immunes? (For Pestilence, he uses AmpDmg.)

Any area with tough poison immunes and/or poison resistant undead, will likely be done on p3. For those monsters, the merc and valk will take over. The valk especially does big damage, at level 17 she uses a rare elite war pike with additional 400% ED. Even against Physical Immunes, she does good damage. I think that some of her attack is converted to magic damage. Plus she occasionally spawns Amp Damage.

The merc assists with 50% Open Wounds and Prevent Monster Heal. He and the valk make a good team. Even so, I only plan to use p8 for special high level areas or against monsters with relatively low life (like Fallen, flayers, rogues, afflicted, etc...)

I can't believe that this was clear on page 3. Anywho, I did a little more with my assassin. Act I isn't that bad in NM. I think I'm at like lvl 44.

Quick update on Pestilence. He has upped the players to 3 to increase # of drops. Seems to be handling it OK. Progress is steady. He has killed Andariel (a tough battle, merc died many, many times) and Radament (a really easy battle) and is Level 78, waiting to go out into the Rocky Waste.

The undead in the sewers weren't that bad; the undead ED provided by Gravepalm has helped a lot. I do have a question, though.

The question is, does deadly strike stack with amp damage? My current weapon, Heart Carver, has the mod "35% deadly strike." So if I hit an amped monster and I get a deadly strike roll, does my attack do 4X damage, or is the damage to an amped monster 2X no matter what? I haven't really been able to determine this through experimentation...

January 9th Status Update

Amazon
1. Exarkun--Champion Stinky_Poo--Clvl76--Act1 Hell
2. Crazy Runner Guy--Alexis--Clvl29--Act4
3. Insane Wayne--Champion Emerald Lin--Clvl77--Act1 Hell

Assassin
1. Gaz--Deathblade--Clvl6--Act1
2. Gabriel74--Slayer Strychnine--Clvl44--Act1 NM
3. AltheKiller--Slayer Tact--Clvl50--Act3 NM

Druid
1. AlterEgo--Canis_Rabie--Clvl28--Act3
2. Quickdeath--Slayer Curare--Clvl63--Act4 NM
3. Falcon4eva--Slayer Vile_Jaws--Clvl49--Act1 NM

Necromancer
1. doctorgonzo
2. PSYCHO--Alice_Cooper--Clvl14--Act1
3. azn_apocalypse--Champion Pestilence--Clvl78--Act2 Hell

Pestilence (level 81) is having a lot of adventures (and problems) in the desert. Note that these events took place over the last week, as progress is very slow now.

Anyway, when we last left him he had just killed Radament in Hell. Feeling pretty confident, my party decided to go to the Stony Tomb and kill the undead there. I got somewhat of a shock there, because the undead there were much harder to kill than those I had encountered in the sewers. The undead mages' elemental attacks (when compared to the returned archers' arrows) also did a lot more damage to me. Makes sense, seeing as how elemental attacks pass right thru bone armor. My poison resist is my worst resist (how ironic) at -26. Getting hit by a single poison bolt, while not immediately lethal, necessitated a trip back to town to heal up. Needless to say, I hung back and let my merc do most of the killing. Unfortunately he got killed and resurrected a lot, but better him than me. At last I cleared the entire Tomb (actually did it twice). No great items found.

I ventured into the Dry Hills and decided to try the Halls of the Dead. Big mistake. As soon as I entered the first chamber, hordes of poison-immune undead, embalmed and shocking bats swarmed around me. They were supported and continuously revived by at least three greater mummies. I was too afraid of meleeing the embalmed myself because of their nasty poison attack, so my merc's attack was my only attack against these undead. Well, it took several trips to town to even clear out the first chamber, and I decided that clearing the entire Halls of the Dead would be too much trouble than it was worth, seeing as how I already had the cube. So I did the unthinkable and...*gasp*...skipped the whole area to save my sanity.

Next stop, Maggot Lair. This place was actually pretty easy. While maggots are poison immune, beetles are not, and itchies are a joke when matched up against big poison damage. Maggots were therefore my only real annoyance, and I refused to take on any maggots unless I had to; when I saw one of the buggers blocking a passageway, I just turned around and tried to find another way (too much trouble to let the merc kill it because of the narrow passageways). Somehow, I was able to find my way down to Coldworm's chamber without having to kill hardly of any of them. Coldworm's chamber was FILLED with maggots. There must have been ten mommy maggots in there, which meant HUNDREDS of baby maggots. All of them poison immune, which meant melee was the only way to kill them...and me and my merc can only attack so fast. The baby maggots formed a wall that literally blocked my way from getting to the mommys, which kept laying eggs and creating more babys. Faster than you could blink there were so many maggots on screen that my computer began to slow down. Although I was not in danger of dying, I was worried that the game would crash. This, plus the fact that I was not in mortal danger, made it just annoying. I have a screenshot that shows all the maggots, and it's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. So many enemies on screen at once. Anyway, it probably took about ten minutes to work my way through the chamber and kill every last one of the bugs. I felt like the Orkin man. It was satisfying.

After that I did a full clear of the Ancient Tunnels...this took awhile because of two Stone Skin/Lightning Enchanted ghouls that shrugged off melee attacks. The Claw Viper Temple was a relief. No (or at least very few) poison immune undead, just vipers. Fangskin and his minions went down pretty easily as well.

I ran through the Palace Cellar, killing what I could, then I got to the Arcane Sanctuary and hit a brick wall. The problem? SPECTRES. These things are immune to physical damage and even when I amp them, it takes twenty hits from me and my merc to kill EACH ONE. They also have high poison resistance, because they hardly take any damage. Did I mention they steal mana? When I see a boss pack of spectres I run away. Fast. Then I try to pick off each one individually. Still, last time I played there was one spectre I just could not kill. Conviction, Lightning Enchanted, Stone Skin, Immune to Physical. I sure as hell was not going to melee a LE boss, and my merc was unable to beat the life regeneration on this boss. That and the lightning bolts tended to kill him. Hwanin's Justice is just not cutting it anymore at this point. I've tried to craft a number of elite Safety spears for him to use, but the results were all mediocre. Hwanin's is still the best merc weapon I have.

Solution: poison nova? All my poison synergies/skills are maxed right now. I have not really used poison nova to this point but I think now might be the time to start. I need to find some way to deliver poison damage without jumping into the melee myself.

Emerald has advanced half-way through Act 2 Hell. She just hit level 84. I mopped up 90% of Act 1 on p8. After Blood Raven's area, there weren't too many poison immunes. My merc attracted much less attention after I maxed the valk. Monsters on his flank used to attack him directly, but now they often purposefully step around him to get to the valk. Weird, but very helpful for my sanity. I was sick of pulling him back every 5 seconds from hard-hitting mobs. My level 20 decoy is also quite durable, even in Hell.

Skeleton archers were the only problematic Poison Immunes. Whenever we hit pairs of them, I just ran ahead and left them in our wake with a decoy. I wanted the XP from boss packs though. The valk/decoys took all the arrows while Mizan pecked away. It took a while because of the p8, but I was able to clear 2 packs in the duration of an XP shrine. I carry PMH balanced knives and hit each monster, then my work is done.

I even did Andariel on p8. I cast a couple hundred decoys to take heat off the valk. They often only lasted a couple hits before popping, then I'd cast a new one. When the valk was about to die I recast her. All the while Mizan hacked away. I only had to resurrect him a few times. Andariel's drop wasn't very good, but the rest of Act 1 was a bonanza. I gambled away gold like a madman, only to make another 250,000 before I could blink.

I increased my poison damage after choosing among 2 +skill shields, Sigon's and Lidless Wall Grim Shield. I decided to keep the Sigon's for the high block rather than the lighter Lidless with mods Emerald didn't need. Net result = another couple thousand in poison damage. I still keep the "Rhyme" on the switch with the Gull.

I ventured into the Dry Hills and decided to try the Halls of the Dead. Big mistake. As soon as I entered the first chamber, hordes of poison-immune undead, embalmed and shocking bats swarmed around me. They were supported and continuously revived by at least three greater mummies....I decided that clearing the entire Halls of the Dead would be too much trouble than it was worth, seeing as how I already had the cube. So I did the unthinkable and...*gasp*...skipped the whole area to save my sanity.
Next stop, Maggot Lair. This place was actually pretty easy. While maggots are poison immune, beetles are not, and itchies are a joke when matched up against big poison damage. Maggots were therefore my only real annoyance, and I refused to take on any maggots unless I had to; when I saw one of the buggers blocking a passageway, I just turned around and tried to find another way
The Claw Viper Temple was a relief. No (or at least very few) poison immune undead, just vipers. Fangskin and his minions went down pretty easily as well.

I couldn't have put it better myself. I did everything exactly as you had. Itchies are indeed a joke. Is there any creature with a more pitiful and laughable name than "Berserker Itchies"? Maybe Berserker Chihuahua.

I skipped the loner maggots whenever possible, but I made sure to kill the bosses. I had a powerful valk with a faster attack and amp damage, so it wasn't too bad. But I did suffer my first death. I was standing right here. Mizan and the valk are standing where a boss had been. I couldn't ID the boss because I was stuck around the corner fighting a couple baby maggots. After I killed them (which took forever) I saw the boss was FE. I tried to escape back around the corner but a maggot (seen in the screenie) was stuck in a crooked position. I couldn't attack it, it couldn't attack me, and worst of all, my TPs appeared on the other side of it, unreachable. It just sat there, quivering. The boss blew and I was killed instantly. Dammit. Oh well, I was asking for it, running around Hell with terrible resists, not paying attention.

For the first time in about 2+ years, I retrieved my corpse. I'd completely forgotten the whole ritual of running "naked" to get your gear. This is my first SC in a long while. I tried to kill the bugged maggot, but I still couldn't, and neither could the valk or Mizan. Lucky worm... But on the bright side, players8 + high MF is paying off. I've found tons of great loot. Here's some screens:

NM Meph p8... 3 uniques, cool
Baal's minion room drops... p8 NM, javelins were crap, made lots of gold tho
Welcome to the tower!...From a barrel in the first room, my first Gheed's
Emerald's first elite unique!... p8 Underground Passage
Collection of ethereal uniques found in succession, weird...
decent rare bone knife
Cold Crow's gang... pwned! another quick 100,000+ gold
obligatory cruel/evisceration (but normal) magic weapon... How come they're never elite???

Champion Emerald Lin, level 84, Act 2 Hell, Jerhyn's Palace.

At last, the hated Act 2 has been completed by Pestilence (Level 82)! I spent almost two weeks (granted, not continuously) working thru Act 2 but finally it's over!

I was right about Poison Nova; fully synergized, it is an amazing skill. I added a new hotkey for it and enemies started dropping much more rapidly. One thing I really like about poison nova is that the poison bolts pass right thru my bone wall, so I can still spam bone wall without fear.

Ironically, I found that Greater Mummies and Vampires, normally two of the toughest undead monsters, were easier for my party to kill than Ghosts and Embalmeds, b/c of the phys immunity of ghosts and the poison immunity of embalmeds.

Compared to some of the crazy boss packs I had been facing, a players 3 Duriel was cake. I just kept casting clay golem and poison nova and stabbed away with my dagger. Duriel tended to attack the golem, so it was all good. He dropped two new finds for me: Duriel's Shell (Cuirass) and Saracen's Chance (ammy). Neither are more useful to me than MF, so I'll continue wearing what I have on. They're good items, tho.

I still only have three-socketed ptopaz armors for me and my merc. I want to upgrade to four-socketed armors for the extra MF, but I have only found one four-socketed armor so far, and I stupidly sold it before I realized the potential use. I also tried the cube socketing recipe on an embossed plate, but it only gave me three sockets! (Would it ever give four sockets?)

I also found a 284% ed (cruel) champion sword! Wow! Too bad I'm not using a barb merc. This weapon would eat the enemies up!

Duriel tended to attack the golem, so it was all good. He dropped two new finds for me: Duriel's Shell (Cuirass) and Saracen's Chance (ammy).

Duriel dropped his shell? That's cool...

I have only found one four-socketed armor so far, and I stupidly sold it before I realized the potential use. I also tried the cube socketing recipe on an embossed plate, but it only gave me three sockets! (Would it ever give four sockets?)

Yes, embossed plate can have 4 sockets. The cube recipe has a 50% (3/6) chance of giving 4 sockets, and a 1/6 chance each for 1,2, or 3 sockets. You were unlucky. I used the recipe to make a 2 socket Heater for an improved "Rhyme". My odds were better, 5/6 to get 2 sockets.

I hate shopping, but for this character I got in the habit of checking for 4 socket Jeweler's armor once per town trip. They're rare, but if you're persistent one will pop up. Or you can try the recipe with any of the elite armors for another 50/50 chance of 4 sockets.

for this character I got in the habit of checking for 4 socket Jeweler's armor once per town trip. They're rare, but if you're persistent one will pop up.

Some additional info about shopping for Jeweler´s armors:

* Act 3 NM is the first place you can see them. In Normal, there is a cap on ilvl, so you can´t get Jeweler´s there and in the first two acts in NM, none of the armor types for sale support 4 sockets.
However, there is a problem finding them even at this stage, because of how affix levels are counted. If my calculations are correct, you need to be at least clvl 67 to be able to see a Jeweler´s Gothic Plate for sale. At around level 70-72, I think you have opened them all up.

* Providing the armor can get Jeweler´s, about 1/200 of the armors for sale will be a Jeweler´s.

January 13th Status Update

Amazon
1. Exarkun--Champion Stinky_Poo--Clvl78--Act2 Hell
2. Crazy Runner Guy--Alexis--Clvl29--Act4
3. Insane Wayne--Champion Emerald Lin--Clvl84--Act2 Hell

Assassin
1. Gaz--Deathblade--Clvl6--Act1
2. Gabriel74--Slayer Strychnine--Clvl44--Act1 NM
3. AltheKiller--Slayer Tact--Clvl50--Act3 NM

Druid
1. AlterEgo--Canis_Rabie--Clvl28--Act3
2. Quickdeath--Slayer Curare--Clvl63--Act4 NM
3. Falcon4eva--Slayer Vile_Jaws--Clvl49--Act1 NM

Necromancer
1. doctorgonzo
2. PSYCHO--Alice_Cooper--Clvl14--Act1
3. azn_apocalypse--Champion Pestilence--Clvl82--Act3 Hell

Ok, good news and bad news to report.

The Bad: Ok, so Pestilence was going thru the Spider Forest in Act 3 Hell, when suddenly he crossed into the Great Marsh -- and was one-hit killed by a minion Gloam. I didn't even get to see the boss mods, as the boss gloam was off-screen somewhere. My lightning resist is 7%...are Gloams just that powerful in Hell or is something else happening here? Do I need more lightning resist?

The Good: I found another ptopaz, upped my magic find by 24%, and decided to run Hell Andy once today. She dropped Endlesshail (Double Bow) and...Skullder's Ire (Russet Armor)!!! Never found this one before. Wow, +1 to skills and MF based on char level! (102% at the moment) I'm thinking I'll socket this and use it as my endgame armor...what should I put in there for my poison Necro? I was thinking a jewel of some sort...resist all (how common are these jewels)? A ptopaz for even more MF? I even have some rare jewels in Pestilence's stash that I've been saving for something like this...*runs excitedly to check stash*

EDIT: Another question I have is, if I put Skullder's on my merc (str req too high right now), how much MF will he get? He's exactly the same level as I am. Will the "based on char level" thing work correctly?

I HATE GLOAMS!!!! I hate gloams. I really, really hate gloams.

Pestilence is level 82 and has basically lost a full level of experience constantly dying to these annoying things. I got my lightning resist up to 26 but it might be as well be -80, because I have died at least twenty times so far. No matter how carefully I step through the jungle, they always get me.

With my equipment on, I can survive a few hits from the bolts but they'll always somehow manage to suddenly fire six bolts at me simultaneously...oops...*necro screams*..."You have lost experience." Attempting to get my corpse is futile because I always die in one hit from a gloam without my equipment on.

My merc is a moron too...I'm starting to understand where they get their nickname from. I try to get him to go in front of me and attack gloams that are on the other side of the screen, but he'll just hang around next to me or get stuck behind a tree or something. Who would have thought an animated pile of clay would be smarter than an Act 2 merc?

Well I managed to get Pestilence through the Great Marsh (by switching out my "Lore" Helm for a Blackhorn's Face that Pestilence found a while ago)...the Gloams still did tons of damage, but not as much as they had been inflicting before. I found my way into the Flayer Jungle, found and activated the WP, and decided to do kill a few more monsters.

I'm glad I did, because this dropped. First unique elite I've ever found.

Baranar's Star
Devil Star
One-Hand Damage: 129 to 159
Durability: 39 of 172
Required Dexterity: 44
Required Strength: 153
Required Level: 65
Mace Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10 Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x2b1cc30d
+15 to Strength
+15 to Dexterity
+200% Enhanced Damage
Adds 1-200 fire damage
Adds 1-200 lightning damage
Adds 1-200 cold damage over 8 seconds
+100 Maximum Durability
50% Increased Attack Speed
200% Bonus to Attack Rating
150% Damage to Undead

Howdy All,
Stinky_Poo is cruizin' Act2 at CLvl 79. Just got the staff and ammy and headin' into the palace. No great green or gold finds lately. I did find a 4soc Scarb Husk which is just waiting on 2 more P topazes. Found a Mal Rune in a chest. High rune but what can it make...Venom?
Anyhoo, hope all is well with everyone.

Ekun

Stinky_Poo had a great marning!!!
Finished Act2 at Clvl80. Found Shako! Found Chancies! Found Silkweave Boots!
Now she's up and runnin'!

January 16th Status Update

Amazon
1. Exarkun--Champion Stinky_Poo--Clvl80--Act3 Hell
2. Crazy Runner Guy--Alexis--Clvl29--Act4
3. Insane Wayne--Champion Emerald Lin--Clvl84--Act2 Hell

Assassin
1. Gaz--Deathblade--Clvl6--Act1
2. Gabriel74--Slayer Strychnine--Clvl44--Act1 NM
3. AltheKiller--Slayer Tact--Clvl50--Act3 NM

Druid
1. AlterEgo--Canis_Rabie--Clvl28--Act3
2. Quickdeath--Slayer Curare--Clvl63--Act4 NM
3. Falcon4eva--Slayer Vile_Jaws--Clvl49--Act1 NM

Necromancer
1. doctorgonzo
2. PSYCHO--Alice_Cooper--Clvl14--Act1
3. azn_apocalypse--Champion Pestilence--Clvl82--Act3 Hell

Another question I have is, if I put Skullder's on my merc (str req too high right now), how much MF will he get? He's exactly the same level as I am. Will the "based on char level" thing work correctly?

Good question. I assume so, because items with "+life based on char level" visibly work on mercs when you check their stats. Regardless, I'd reserve the armor for your necro. You'll benefit from the +skill more than the merc, it might be worth another couple thousand more poison damage. Nice find!
For socketing, I'd go with an Ort/lightning resist jewel, since you're dying often to lightning damage. (You can always "Hel" it out later.) Single digit lightning resist is costing you a lot of XP from dying. I see you're wearing Blackhorn's Face now for lightning protection, but in a few levels you might find/gamble +2 skills circlets. (Also, I don't mean to be a nitpick, but I thought Blackhorn's was banned because of the lightning damage it inflicts. Just a friendly heads-up. No big deal.)

Stinky_Poo is cruizin' Act2 at CLvl 79. Just got the staff and ammy and headin' into the palace. No great green or gold finds lately. I did find a 4soc Scarb Husk which is just waiting on 2 more P topazes. Found a Mal Rune in a chest. High rune but what can it make...Venom?

"Sanctuary" shield (Ko+Ko+Mal) might work well for you. High block and +50-70 resist all. Those high resists can grant you flexibility with your other gear for more +skills/MF, and recover more inventory/stash space since you could ditch some resist charms.

Stinky_Poo had a great marning!!! Finished Act2 at Clvl80. Found Shako! Found Chancies! Found Silkweave Boots! Now she's up and runnin'!

Shako! Awesome! I've been teased with about 10 rare shakos, but no Harly yet.

 

[Grisu]

Note: These are posts #121-137 (final post) from the original tournament thread part 1.

It appears that I have been falling behind in this tournament, so this week will be declared Venomsin Week. Expect much progress by next week Monday.

Emerald has progressed through Kurast and is ready for Mephisto's Durance. The latter half of Act 2 was very tough, especially at p8. I probably would've given up, but since I found a Guillaume's Face for the merc, it was bearable. Some of the fights took forever. Against poison immunes, I would set up a position where the valk tanked everything, while Mizan slowly worked his way around the mob. It allowed me to actually do some other work on the computer, while D2 ran in a window. But the loot more than compensates for the delay. I'm leveling earlier than I ever have before, and earning millions of gold from each area.

I ran into a snag in the Palace Cellar. I ditched a small group of skeleton archers, and ran right into a nasty Fanaticism archer boss pack. The decoy and merc were toasted instantly, and my Slow Missiles were interrupted when the first group of archers pursued and hit me through the doorway. The valk was killed, and I was wasted in less than a second, my second death so far. I advanced from the opposite side to retrieve my corpse, luckily it wasn't too difficult.

The cellars coughed up some great items, including this bonanza. Atma's Wail isn't anything special, but Griswold's Heart might be my merc's endgame armor. The Iceblink was useful for "Hit Freezes Target", but Mizan has a new freezing weapon now, Woestave. True, the damage isn't great, but thanks to a Pul rune I found in the Arcane Sanctuary, I can upgrade it to a Great Poleaxe, and maybe socket it with an Amn. Something like this... The damage is pretty good now, especially assisted with 35% Crushing Blow on the helm. And look at all those special attributes! Very beneficial both defensively and offensively. Cool item.

The False Tombs were also tough, but Mizan's HF aura and Target Freezing shattered most of the corpses. Poison was of course a big problem for my whole party, even the valk would succumb to it often. Treasure and XP were plentiful again, Emerald even scored a triple double... Three green double axes from 3 different tombs(!), collected here for a screenshot. Even those ghostly sabres that sometimes pop out of urns were generous, dropping magical elites. After the tombs, Duriel was easy. Poor drop though.

Act 3 started off well, my Plague Javelin was effective and relatively quick even on p8. Poison Spiders were the only tough ones. I found another elite set item in the Spider Cavern, always fun to see those. I also found the Blade of Ali Baba to replace my beloved Gull Dagger. I put an 8% MF jewel in one socket, and am saving the other. I'll take a small hit in the MF for two free sockets anytime.

I cleared out the whole jungle, except for a few of those poison immune large snakes that attack from the rivers. I reached level 87 as I cleared out Kurast. No poison immunes (except for mummies in the Sewers), and those Hell Swarms went down easy just like their Itchy cousins. After each city area, I equipped my maximum MF and ran back through opening chests etc... (thanks to jiansonz for this idea). I found a nice skiller while swiping the Tome. Excellent!

As I gambled away my earnings, I noticed one of the benefits of Gheed's charm: "Reduced Vendor Prices" applies to gambling! Nice. For every 87 amulets I gamble, I get 13 free ones. I'll take it! I began to notice some drool-inducing +2 skill amulets and circlets. Nothing for zons yet, but I'm confident I'll get one, since all I gamble are circlets/amulets. If I find a magical Valkyrie's circlet, I'll probably have Larzuk socket it, for a chance at 2 sockets. Otherwise I can use my SoJ to socket a rare circlet. Either would be great.

Emerald defeated the Council easily, scoring some non-useful rare elites from them, and opened up the Durance before quitting for the day. I found another elite set weapon along the way. I am officially addicted to p8 in Hell now.

Champion Emerald Lin, level 87, Act 3 Hell, Durance of Hate

(Also, I don't mean to be a nitpick, but I thought Blackhorn's was banned because of the lightning damage it inflicts. Just a friendly heads-up. No big deal.)

Yep, forgot about that. I haven't found any resist all jewels yet, so I might proceed with the Ort Rune solution, with the possibility of Hel'ing it out later. I've never actually advanced this far in the game so I'm running into all sorts of problems I haven't had to deal with before.

Skullder's Ire has been socketed with Ort. With that plus Saracen's Chance, my Lightning resist is now at 58%. Woohoo! I ran into some gloams in the Flayer Dungeon and had no trouble dispatching them.

I only found one unique last play session, but man it was a good one...

Blackbog's Sharp
Cinquedeas
One-Hand Damage: 30 to 76
Durability: 22 of 24
Required Dexterity: **
Required Strength: 25
Required Level: 38
Dagger Class - Fastest Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10 Expansion
Item Level: 81
Fingerprint: 0x22f5ad03
+15 to Minimum Damage
+45 to Maximum Damage
+50 Defense
+488 poison damage over 10 seconds
30% Increased Attack Speed
+4 to Poison Explosion (Necromancer Only)
+4 to Poison Nova (Necromancer Only)
+5 to Poison Dagger (Necromancer Only)
Slows Target by 50%

How funny that I've been playing as a Necromancer with PDagger as a primary skill, and so far I've managed to find 3 out of the 4 unique exceptional daggers. Not bad. Blackbog's is GREAT, though. Not overpowering physical damage, but poison explosion damage is now 18K to 20K over 12 seconds!

I need a sol rune (or a chipped amethyst) to make the Honor runeword for my merc. I found a five socketed ethereal lance that I want to make use of. I believe it will be better than the rare colossus voulge he is currently using.

I need a sol rune (or a chipped amethyst) to make the Honor runeword for my merc.

When you play untwinked, the gem requirements in those recipes can be really annoying. I mean, it´s not like your character hasn´t seen his share of chipped amethysts during his career! In NM and beyond, you can easily play more than an act without seeing a particular type of chipped gem. In situations like yours, I have sometimes tried the 1/7 chance a Gem Shrine offers!

Nowadays, I am a little better at predicting what sort of chippes I might need later, and save a few when they still drop fairly often. They do take up some precious space, though.

Really great progress guys!! I'm impressed!

It appears that I have been falling behind in this tournament, so this week will be declared Venomsin Week. Expect much progress by next week Monday.

I too am woefully behind. I'm going to play for 5-6 tonight for at least a little catch-up.

In NM and beyond, you can easily play more than an act without seeing a particular type of chipped gem. In situations like yours, I have sometimes tried the 1/7 chance a Gem Shrine offers!

Yeah, I've tried that several times myself. Lesser gems and runes are always the first thing to go when stash space is critical. I very rarely repeat an area, but if I'm frustrated, I'll start a new game and farm a Normal Act 1 area for chips, and low runes when needed.

I like the aspect of a limited stash for battle equipment, it's challenging to prioritize your gear; but I wish D2 had a separate high capacity stash for gems, jewels, and runes. Maybe something like a cloth "gem sack" icon you could click on and open separately.

January 19th Status Update

Amazon
1. Exarkun--Champion Stinky_Poo--Clvl81--Act3 Hell
2. Crazy Runner Guy--Alexis--Clvl29--Act4
3. Insane Wayne--Champion Emerald Lin--Clvl87--Act3 Hell

Assassin
1. Gaz--Deathblade--Clvl6--Act1
2. Gabriel74--Slayer Strychnine--Clvl44--Act1 NM
3. AltheKiller--Slayer Tact--Clvl50--Act3 NM

Druid
1. AlterEgo--Canis_Rabie--Clvl28--Act3
2. Quickdeath--Slayer Curare--Clvl63--Act4 NM
3. Falcon4eva--Slayer Vile_Jaws--Clvl49--Act1 NM

Necromancer
1. doctorgonzo
2. PSYCHO--Alice_Cooper--Clvl14--Act1
3. azn_apocalypse--Champion Pestilence--Clvl82--Act3 Hell

I was driving home from work yesterday and I saw this beautiful girl walking down the street. I mean, man, she was gorgeous! So I was checkin' out her frame and didn't see the huge speed

BUMP

in the road. Just thought I'd share... :bonk:

I'm finally here for a real update

Canis_rabis is now a Slayer. I took him through the rest of Norm at Players8 except for Baal. (He's such a pain at P8 - won't kill you, but takes forever!)

No deaths, but a couple close calls. Defense isn't too hot, and he sometimes gets a little too close into the action. I think I'll switch from my maul to 1H/shield for NM and beyond. No great finds, but no worries, the game is young. Besides I'm not running with any MF right now. I've collected a stash of 113 chippies for prizes so far.

Maxed rabies & poison creeper, so poision damage is nearly as high as it will be - about 5K over 12 seconds. Next I'll beef up the wolves so they are more durable and can tank better for me. I stuck with my A1 rogue merc, and her damage is pretty decent so far. She only died to Diablo.

Maybe I can catch up to the other druids.

Slayer Canis_rabis, lvl48, Rogue Camp

Stinky_Poo had a good day today. Killed the Big D in Hell and moved into Act5. I did Act4 at Players 1, wanted to get through it.
No great finds. The Forge gave me a Pul. And Mephy gave me my second Shako. Did find a superior 4 soc Diamond Mail. That'tt be good for an upgraded topaz aromor.

Gotta Run,
Ekun

Bumping this thread to say that I am still playing but I have had my DII time divided recently by real life and by my tournament characters. I should start playing the SC character in between HC play...

*bumpy bumpy*

Introducing Matriarch Stinky_Poo! She did it at Clvl 84. The battle with Baal took forever! Poison just doesn't kill fast.
Anyhoo, Good Luck to everyone else. Remember, the winner is the player who becomes Matriarch/Patriarch at the lowest Clvl.
Good Luck to all!

Status Update

Amazon
1. Exarkun--Matriarch Stinky_Poo--Clvl84--All Acts Completed
2. Crazy Runner Guy--Alexis--Clvl29--Act4
3. Insane Wayne--Champion Emerald Lin--Clvl87--Act3 Hell

Assassin
1. Gaz--Deathblade--Clvl6--Act1
2. Gabriel74--Slayer Strychnine--Clvl44--Act1 NM
3. AltheKiller--Slayer Tact--Clvl50--Act3 NM

Druid
1. AlterEgo--Slayer Canis_Rabie--Clvl48--Act1 NM
2. Quickdeath--Slayer Curare--Clvl63--Act4 NM
3. Falcon4eva--Slayer Vile_Jaws--Clvl49--Act1 NM

Necromancer
1. doctorgonzo
2. PSYCHO--Alice_Cooper--Clvl14--Act1
3. azn_apocalypse--Champion Pestilence--Clvl82--Act3 Hell

I've taken Emerald part-way through Act 5, 99% on p8, and my team is getting stronger and stronger. My last update ended at Meph's Durance. I expected frustration there because mummies and dolls are Poison Immune, but actually it wasn't too bad. One nice feature of Mizan's upgraded Woestave is the "Hit Blinds Target +3". Vampires and dolls are a skittish bunch that love to flee from their attackers. HBT kept them standing still, totally helpless. Meph was no match for us, and his drop wasn't too useful. Green and Gold Breast Plates? Hey Meph, where's the Cathan's Seal?

Great monster rolls in Act 4. Lots of Stranglers, and the only Poison Immunes were corpse eaters. Right out the gate, I found some
elite unique gloves. Interesting, but of no use for Emerald. More stranglers in the Plains, what pushovers they are! Here you can see some colorful stranglers witnessing the pwnage of their lesser brethren. Izual couldn't hurt a fly, and Mizan's CB took him out eventually.

Hephasto had some nasty mods, but the valk tanked him well. I'm not sure if my next prize came from him or an urdar, in any event, I scored a unique dusk shroud! Very cool. Notice the fat piles of gold too. Whenever I kill a unique monster I make sure to equip my maximum MF, which also includes about 620% Gold Find (Ali Baba, Goldwrap, Chancies, Gheed's, Rhyme). Now for the precious Hell Forge bonus! I was hoping for an Ist rune, for my Ali Baba. Not this time. I got a Mal rune.

The Chaos Sanctuary was tough. IM knocked out my merc and valk several times. I put Decoys on top of the OKs to disrupt them, and pack by pack we gritted our way through. I always clear the whole area before opening any seals. At the top of De Seis' wing, I ran into a Strangler pack, and the boss somehow was stuck outside the top wall, hovering over the lava. It couldn't attack us and we couldn't attack him, not even with my poison clouds. I gave up and cleared the Grand Vizier's wing. Before breaking the seals, I checked on him again. Nice! He magically became unstuck. I hit him with a plague javelin...
Are my eyes deceiving me? No freakin' way! My dream armor! I've lusted after this armor since its creation by Blizzard. I've found every piece of Tal's set multiple times, but never the armor. Awesome! You can see in the screenshot, I socketed it after defeating Diablo. PTopaz of course! 112% MF... Awesome.

Before starting Act 5, I went on another of my frequent gambling sprees. I finally nailed a +2 skills zon circlet, on a rare. The rest of the mods were so-so, but good enough for me to use the SoJ, and insert a PTopaz. Now I have a big boost to my poison skills whenever I need it.

Hmm, what treasures does Act 5 have in store for me? But first things first, how do I take out p8 poison immune Burning Archers? I Slow Missiled them, but they still wasted Mizan. I had to constantly cast Decoy and Valkyrie into the middle of their packs to draw all their fire, so Mizan could approach and hack them down one by one. Even the mighty valk had to be recast quite a bit simply because of the massive damage she endured. But were there any rewards for my work? How about a shako (from a chest!!) within the first 15 minutes! Holy crap! Emerald's tiara is sitting in her stash, still warm from the socketing, and now it is totally OBSOLETE! I blew my SoJ (only the 2nd I've ever found) for NOTHING! Ha!
The only minor problem with the shako is that it's ethereal (with 7 durability) but I doubt Emerald will suffer enough damage to break it before I finish the game. Too bad about the wasted SoJ, I wish I had it back so I could at least use it to reroll some nice rare boots or a ring. Oh well. As for the shako, after defeating Shenk and collecting 3 more flawless topaz, I used my last socketing quest and inserted (what else?) a PTopaz.

The Frigid Highlands was pretty easy. Poison works wonders against imps, boars, and Fallen. I found another elite set weapon. Emerald's puny strength was hardly sufficient to stick it in her stash. And cheapskate Larzuk only wanted to pay about 8000 gold for it. So I wrecked it with a couple El runes before I sold it to him.

Arreat Plateau was a bit more challenging, but still no major threats. No major finds either, until I killed Thresh Socket. Whoa mama! That's some BIG damage! I checked the variable stats for Steel Pillars, and the one I got is not impressive, below average on the damage and defense bonuses. Nevertheless, Mizan's max damage doubled(!) from about 1000 to 2000, and his defense rose to 4000. Not to mention 60% CB combined with Guillaume's Face. I let him try it out as I sought the Crystalline Passage waypoint. The damage is awesome, but defensively Mizan was much more fragile. One problem was now he lacked any life steal, and I used my last socket quest on the Harly. Socketing with an Amn isn't possible. Mizan needed a lot more babysitting. Call me crazy, but I went back to the Woestave. 35% CB is enough. And I like the safety provided by the Slowing/Freezing/Blinding.

Well guys, I'm really stunned by the frequency of these great finds. This is the most fun I've had with a MF character ever. The best part is, I can safely equip 90% of my maximum MF full-time, and still inflict massive poison damage. I've never cleared p8 Hell with well over 400% full-time MF, so maybe some of this is to be expected. But I still have to believe the D2 gods were smiling on me when I found that Tal's.

Champion Emerald Lin, level **, Act 5 Hell, Crystalline Passage

Call me crazy, but I went back to the Woestave. 35% CB is enough. And I like the safety provided by the Slowing/Freezing/Blinding.

You´re certainly not crazy if you use whatever seems to be working best.

Well guys, I'm really stunned by the frequency of these great finds. This is the most fun I've had with a MF character ever. The best part is, I can safely equip 90% of my maximum MF full-time, and still inflict massive poison damage. I've never cleared p8 Hell with well over 400% full-time MF, so maybe some of this is to be expected. But I still have to believe the D2 gods were smiling on me when I found that Tal's.

Many great finds indeed. I can´t keep from looking at your screenies, even though I don´t want to know the stats of items I haven´t found yet...

Champion Emerald Lin, level **, Act 5 Hell, Crystalline Passage

Since you can no longer win the tournament, I hope you continue on /p8. I want to know what the final level will be on a /p8 complete game clear. Do you think Emerald will reach level 90?

I got a Mal rune.

You also got a Perfect Emerald, which is very fitting, considering how strong a character she seems to be.

Many great finds indeed. I can´t keep from looking at your screenies, even though I don´t want to know the stats of items I haven´t found yet...

I know what you mean. I never even knew unique vambraces existed. What a treat to ID them, even if they're useless for me.
Three things I learned with Emerald:
1. A major improvement in the quality of items found, and especially gambled, from the mid 80s and up. +2 skill items started to appear regularly.
2. In D2, just as in life, the rich get richer. The self-reinforcing cycle of "high MF --> good gear --> higher MF --> better gear" has tremendous power if you can get it rolling early. I was able to tackle p8 Hell with 400% MF starting from the Rogue Camp. I was lucky to have the opportunity. I'd guess that untwinked builds who never rerun areas rarely have that opportunity.
3. The difference in the number and quality of items found by Emerald, versus those found by Coral (who finished Hell on p1 at level 83 with small MF) is astounding. It feels like a factor of ten.

Since you can no longer win the tournament, I hope you continue on /p8. I want to know what the final level will be on a /p8 complete game clear. Do you think Emerald will reach level 90?

Absolutely will continue on p8. I don't think I'll reach level 90. XP gains have slowed down a lot. It depends on the XP bonus from the Ancients. I'm not sure I can handle p8 Ancients. I'll try though. I wonder if the XP gained from them is higher on p8 than p1? There were a couple areas I started on p1 before switching to p8, but the difference should be negligible. I lost a little XP from two careless deaths in Act 2, and retrieved my corpse both times; so the net XP loss is small. I'm still doubtful about hitting 90 though. 89 for sure.

Emerald Lin, the Conclusion...

Upon resuming her trip through the Crystalline Passage, Emerald rolled some easy monsters: Hell Witches, Infidels, and Mages. Meager life and no poison immunes! It was a total rout. The first cool find here was the set spired helm. Hmm... That makes 3 out of 4 for the "Heaven's Brethren" set, I only need the shield to complete another "seen and sold" set. The rest of the Passage was tame, except for the last bit of unexplored hallway which housed double-boss packs of witches and infidels. When the dust settled, Emerald had her first elite repeat. Actually, I was more excited about the rare colossus sword. Mighty elite rares are always fun to find (this one was anything but mighty, blah..)

On to the Frozen River: Rot Walkers, Frozen Creepers, and Vipers. Time consuming, but again no poison immunes and no major threats. After a steady full clear, Anya was freed and I was free to gamble again. Lacking only a nice +skills amulet, I focused entirely on gambling dozens of them (instead of 60% amulets, as I'd been doing) until I finally hit a stunner. Nice! +2 skills and only a small net MF loss versus my Coral Amulet of Fortune. With the extra cold resist and Malah's resistance scroll, I made another gear change. I swapped my rare plated belt for the Goldwrap (newly upgraded to a Battle Belt). Ka-ching! More full-time MF and Gold Find

Major slowdown in Nihlathak's Halls! Lots of Poison Immunes. And plenty of unleechables to give me headaches managing the merc. From a non-sparkly chest in the Halls of Anguish, another elite unique weapon! Wow, this would've been fun for my tankazon. Fast, big damage, freeze +4, lvl 10 Arctic Blast. Oh well, moving on...
Halls of Pain was easier, with Guardians, Heirophants, and Night Lords. I found another heavy exceptional armor, Black Hades Chaos Armor. Like Griswold's armor, it has high defense and 3 sockets, plus a nice boost of 54% damage to demons. The timing of this find was good, I was contemplating "Hel"ing the topaz out of Griswold's and putting in a couple fervor jewels for the merc. Instead, I sold Griswold's and set up Mizan with the Hades, socketed with a plain jewel of fervor, camphor jewel of fervor, and a decent rare jewel, seen here.

Mizan didn't see much action while trying his new armor. Halls of Vaught had Poison Immune Returned Archers and Pit Vipers. The bugged viper poison attacks killed him instantly. Even the valk often lost 80% of her life when engaging a new pack. I quickly realized Mizan was useless, and didn't bother to resurrect him. I assisted the valk with PMH throwing knives and let her finish them off. Decoys were blasted off profusely. After a full clear, I brought Mizan with me for the killing blow against Nihlathak. No good drop from him though.

I had more trouble on the Glacial Trail, with two poison immune species, Pit Vipers and Bone Warriors. Emerald gets very fidgety when she can't lend her massive poison attack to the group effort. I gotta get my drops though, so I waited patiently and honed my casting techniques.
Nothing news-worthy occured until I hit the Ancient's Way, where I had a cake walk against Abominables, Afflicted, and Rogues. A monster dropped one of Bul-Kathos' children. Yet another elite I've never seen before. Awesome!

I was able to defeat p8 Hell Ancients! I did several rerolls until I got no Extra Fast or Cursed. I littered the area with stacks of javelins and potions. First, I led my gang around until Mizan hit each Ancient while wielding Blackhorn's and Woestave, for a big slowing effect. Then I switched Mizan's helm to Guillaume's, and set up a position where Madawc threw into a pillar. I burned through many potions keeping Mizan alive, but eventually got a semi-stable situation where the valk tanked and Mizan hacked away with Steel Pillar. I switched his gear often to refresh the slowing and life steal. Mizan eventually was killed but had done some good damage with 60% CB. Poison clouds and the valk did the rest, after a long wait.

Plague Javelin provided great fun in each of the WSK levels. I infected packs of my arch-enemy spawners in level 1, flayers in level 2, and blow dart flayers in level 3. Those flayers are really dense in WSK levels, more so than in Act 3. It was awesome to watch them twitch and drop en masse as my poison spread.
The Throne of Destruction had Hell Witches, Pit Lords, and wimpy Horadrim Ancients (sans skellies). No problem. Lister's pack arranged themselves perfectly. A few of them stun-locked the valk while the stragglers got stuck trying to get around a pillar. Mizan slowly and neatly made his way around the bunch.

Against Baal, I used the merc gear-switching as I had against the Ancients. What a joke! Baal could not even land a single hit after the slowing. I poisoned him while Mizan tanked effortlessly. Baal was soon slivered. I unsummoned the valk and changed Mizan yet again to his full magic gear, which includes the 7 PTopaz armor + crown. Baal died to the tune of 680% MF, but sadly only produced a mediocre drop. I was hoping for at least one more uber-find from the WSK/Baal areas, but no such luck.

p8 Hell cows produced a massive amount of loot, but nothing noteworthy. In gambling away my last batches of gold, I did score a unique ring (Manald Heal). Thus ended Emerald's career, with a sputter. But I'll never forget my incredible run from the Chaos Sanctuary to the Halls of Pain.

Matriarch Emerald Lin, level 89 (about 80% to level 90)
Full-time end-game gear:

Dread Scourge Ceremonial Javelin +1 zon skills, +2 jav skills
Sigon's Guard Tower Shield, +1 skills
Blade of Ali Baba Tulwar , 97% MF, socketed with MF jewel and so-so resist all rare jewel
"Rhyme" Heater, 25% MF
Ethereal Harlequin Crest Shako, socketed with PTopaz, +2 skills, 74% MF, 4 of 7 durability left
Tal Rasha's Guardianship Lacquered Plate, socketed with PTopaz, 112% MF
Lancer's Gauntlets of Wealth, +3 jav skills, 74% Extra Gold
Goldwrap Battle Belt, 30% MF
Wraith Spur Scarabshell Boots, 18% MF
Doom Talisman amulet, +2 zon skills, 23% MF
Nagelring, 28% MF
Garnet Ring of Fortune, 24% fire resist, 24% MF

Full-time MF: +462%, with option for +680% on merc kills
Notable optional gear: Chance Guards (28% MF), Spirit Shroud Ghost Armor (+1 skills), Rune Whorl ring (10% resist all, 15% MF), amulet of luck (35% MF)
Notable charms: Harpoonist GC of Sustenance (+1 jav skills). Gheed's Fortune (28%MF)

Skills / Stats: 93 Strength, 113 Dex, 322 Vit (1386 life), 17 Energy
Resists: 75 Fire, 63 Cold, 48 Lightning, -35 Poison

20 (+12) Poison Javelin
1 (+12) Lightning Bolt (prereq)
20 (+12) Plague Javelin
1 (+6) Inner Sight
2 (+6) Critical Strike
6 (+6) Dodge
1 (+6) Slow Missiles
6 (+6) Avoid
1 (+6) Penetrate
20 (+6) Decoy
1 (+6) Evade
20 (+6) Valkyrie
1 (+6) Pierce

All skills can be boosted +1 with Spirit Shroud armor.
Level 33 Plague Javelin does 29921-30143 damage over 15.8 seconds
Level 33 Poison Javelin does 37096-37961 damage over 72 seconds

Mizan the Holy Freeze Merc, level 89, stats / gear:

Life: 1927, Defense: 2553, Resists: 53 C,F,P, 63 Lightning
Woestave Great Poleaxe (socketed with Amn) 417-830 damage
Guillaume's Face Winged Helm
Black Hades Chaos Armor, socketed with 2 jewels of fervor + rare 20%ED jewel

Notable optional gear: Blackhorn's Face, Steel Pillar (548-2089 damage, yields 4033 defense)

edit: forgot the 2nd thread, will repost there

 

[Grisu]

Note: These are posts #1-28 (final post) from the original tournament thread part 2.

'What's Your Poison?' Tourney Thread II

1/24/2005 Status Update

Amazon
1. Exarkun--Matriarch Stinky_Poo--Clvl84--All Acts Completed
2. Crazy Runner Guy--Alexis--Clvl29--Act4
3. Insane Wayne--Champion Emerald Lin--Clvl87--Act3 Hell

Assassin
1. Gaz--Deathblade--Clvl6--Act1
2. Gabriel74--Slayer Strychnine--Clvl44--Act1 NM
3. AltheKiller--Slayer Tact--Clvl50--Act3 NM

Druid
1. AlterEgo--Slayer Canis_Rabie--Clvl48--Act1 NM
2. Quickdeath--Slayer Curare--Clvl63--Act4 NM
3. Falcon4eva--Slayer Vile_Jaws--Clvl49--Act1 NM

Necromancer
1. doctorgonzo
2. PSYCHO--Alice_Cooper--Clvl14--Act1
3. azn_apocalypse--Champion Pestilence--Clvl82--Act3 Hell

Thought a new thread was in order. Hope that you all continue with your poison characters! Stinky_Poo will continue to MF to improve the prize packages. There will be prizes in addition to the top 3 finishers. Once I get a list of the different categories, I will post that as well!

Good Luck to all!!!!!

Ekun

I'm still here! Updates are a rarity from me and this one's no exception. DII time is nearly always occupied with the TWDII and even that is limited. I shall play Alice_Cooper this evening, I promise.

Just a small update, Deathblade is still in act 1 but is Level 11.

It's been so long since I played an assassin that I am dying every time I take her out. Going to try and spend some time this week before the MFO next week.

I was looking in the mirror the other day and noticed something. Despite my rouged handsomeness, I have a small...

BUMP

...on the bridge of my nose. How disconcerting that I never noticed it before...

Congratulations on making it all the way through, Ekun. Here's to hoping there will be plenty more guardians to join you.

Kinda OT

Errr sorry for the slight OT, but will you host another poison contest after this one is finished Exarkun?


-Slayer

Well, I took deathblade out again last night before the MFO starts, and again I died twice. Going to have to sit and play some long hours with this character before I manage to get anwhere.

This is by far the unluckiest/worst played character I have ever had.

1/30/2005 Status Update

Amazon
1. Exarkun--Matriarch Stinky_Poo--Clvl84--All Acts Completed
2. Crazy Runner Guy--Alexis--Clvl29--Act4
3. Insane Wayne--Champion Emerald Lin--Clvl88--Act5 Hell

Assassin
1. Gaz--Deathblade--Clvl11--Act1
2. Gabriel74--Slayer Strychnine--Clvl44--Act1 NM
3. AltheKiller--Slayer Tact--Clvl50--Act3 NM

Druid
1. AlterEgo--Slayer Canis_Rabie--Clvl48--Act1 NM
2. Quickdeath--Slayer Curare--Clvl63--Act4 NM
3. Falcon4eva--Slayer Vile_Jaws--Clvl49--Act1 NM

Necromancer
1. doctorgonzo
2. PSYCHO--Alice_Cooper--Clvl14--Act1
3. azn_apocalypse--Champion Pestilence--Clvl82--Act3 Hell

Well, a few of you have found some time to make some progress.
I've been playin', too. I've found some more stuff for prizes. I'm thinking there will be a few categories for prizes...

1st Place
2nd Place
3rd Place
Highest Poison Damage
and, Best Dressed

For the last two I will, need screenies e-mailed to me upon completion of Act5 Hell. I'll get the prize packages toether, you guys just keep playin'!

Best of Luck!!!

Emerald Lin, the Conclusion...

Upon resuming her trip through the Crystalline Passage, Emerald rolled some easy monsters: Hell Witches, Infidels, and Mages. Meager life and no poison immunes! It was a total rout. The first cool find here was the set spired helm. Hmm... That makes 3 out of 4 for the "Heaven's Brethren" set, I only need the shield to complete another "seen and sold" set. The rest of the Passage was tame, except for the last bit of unexplored hallway which housed double-boss packs of witches and infidels. When the dust settled, Emerald had her first elite repeat. Actually, I was more excited about the rare colossus sword. Mighty elite rares are always fun to find (this one was anything but mighty, blah..)

On to the Frozen River: Rot Walkers, Frozen Creepers, and Vipers. Time consuming, but again no poison immunes and no major threats. After a steady full clear, Anya was freed and I was free to gamble again. Lacking only a nice +skills amulet, I focused entirely on gambling dozens of them (instead of 60% amulets, as I'd been doing) until I finally hit a stunner. Nice! +2 skills and only a small net MF loss versus my Coral Amulet of Fortune. With the extra cold resist and Malah's resistance scroll, I made another gear change. I swapped my rare plated belt for the Goldwrap (newly upgraded to a Battle Belt). Ka-ching! More full-time MF and Gold Find

Major slowdown in Nihlathak's Halls! Lots of Poison Immunes. And plenty of unleechables to give me headaches managing the merc. From a non-sparkly chest in the Halls of Anguish, another elite unique weapon! Wow, this would've been fun for my tankazon. Fast, big damage, freeze +4, lvl 10 Arctic Blast. Oh well, moving on...
Halls of Pain was easier, with Guardians, Heirophants, and Night Lords. I found another heavy exceptional armor, Black Hades Chaos Armor. Like Griswold's armor, it has high defense and 3 sockets, plus a nice boost of 54% damage to demons. The timing of this find was good, I was contemplating "Hel"ing the topaz out of Griswold's and putting in a couple fervor jewels for the merc. Instead, I sold Griswold's and set up Mizan with the Hades, socketed with a plain jewel of fervor, camphor jewel of fervor, and a decent rare jewel, seen here.

Mizan didn't see much action while trying his new armor. Halls of Vaught had Poison Immune Returned Archers and Pit Vipers. The bugged viper poison attacks killed him instantly. Even the valk often lost 80% of her life when engaging a new pack. I quickly realized Mizan was useless, and didn't bother to resurrect him. I assisted the valk with PMH throwing knives and let her finish them off. Decoys were blasted off profusely. After a full clear, I brought Mizan with me for the killing blow against Nihlathak. No good drop from him though.

I had more trouble on the Glacial Trail, with two poison immune species, Pit Vipers and Bone Warriors. Emerald gets very fidgety when she can't lend her massive poison attack to the group effort. I gotta get my drops though, so I waited patiently and honed my casting techniques.
Nothing news-worthy occured until I hit the Ancient's Way, where I had a cake walk against Abominables, Afflicted, and Rogues. A monster dropped one of Bul-Kathos' children. Yet another elite I've never seen before. Awesome!

I was able to defeat p8 Hell Ancients! I did several rerolls until I got no Extra Fast or Cursed. I littered the area with stacks of javelins and potions. First, I led my gang around until Mizan hit each Ancient while wielding Blackhorn's and Woestave, for a big slowing effect. Then I switched Mizan's helm to Guillaume's, and set up a position where Madawc threw into a pillar. I burned through many potions keeping Mizan alive, but eventually got a semi-stable situation where the valk tanked and Mizan hacked away with Steel Pillar. I switched his gear often to refresh the slowing and life steal. Mizan eventually was killed but had done some good damage with 60% CB. Poison clouds and the valk did the rest, after a long wait.

Plague Javelin provided great fun in each of the WSK levels. I infected packs of my arch-enemy spawners in level 1, flayers in level 2, and blow dart flayers in level 3. Those flayers are really dense in WSK levels, more so than in Act 3. It was awesome to watch them twitch and drop en masse as my poison spread.
The Throne of Destruction had Hell Witches, Pit Lords, and wimpy Horadrim Ancients (sans skellies). No problem. Lister's pack arranged themselves perfectly. A few of them stun-locked the valk while the stragglers got stuck trying to get around a pillar. Mizan slowly and neatly made his way around the bunch.

Against Baal, I used the merc gear-switching as I had against the Ancients. What a joke! Baal could not even land a single hit after the slowing. I poisoned him while Mizan tanked effortlessly. Baal was soon slivered. I unsummoned the valk and changed Mizan yet again to his full magic gear, which includes the 7 PTopaz armor + crown. Baal died to the tune of 680% MF, but sadly only produced a mediocre drop. I was hoping for at least one more uber-find from the WSK/Baal areas, but no such luck.

p8 Hell cows produced a massive amount of loot, but nothing noteworthy. In gambling away my last batches of gold, I did score a unique ring (Manald Heal). Thus ended Emerald's career, with a sputter. But I'll never forget my incredible run from the Chaos Sanctuary to the Halls of Pain.

Matriarch Emerald Lin, level 89 (about 80% to level 90)
Full-time end-game gear:

Dread Scourge Ceremonial Javelin +1 zon skills, +2 jav skills
Sigon's Guard Tower Shield, +1 skills
Blade of Ali Baba Tulwar , 97% MF, socketed with MF jewel and so-so resist all rare jewel
"Rhyme" Heater, 25% MF
Ethereal Harlequin Crest Shako, socketed with PTopaz, +2 skills, 74% MF, 4 of 7 durability left
Tal Rasha's Guardianship Lacquered Plate, socketed with PTopaz, 112% MF
Lancer's Gauntlets of Wealth, +3 jav skills, 74% Extra Gold
Goldwrap Battle Belt, 30% MF
Wraith Spur Scarabshell Boots, 18% MF
Doom Talisman amulet, +2 zon skills, 23% MF
Nagelring, 28% MF
Garnet Ring of Fortune, 24% fire resist, 24% MF

Full-time MF: +462%, with option for +680% on merc kills
Notable optional gear: Chance Guards (28% MF), Spirit Shroud Ghost Armor (+1 skills), Rune Whorl ring (10% resist all, 15% MF), amulet of luck (35% MF)
Notable charms: Harpoonist GC of Sustenance (+1 jav skills). Gheed's Fortune (28%MF)

Skills / Stats: 93 Strength, 113 Dex, 322 Vit (1386 life), 17 Energy
Resists: 75 Fire, 63 Cold, 48 Lightning, -35 Poison

20 (+12) Poison Javelin
1 (+12) Lightning Bolt (prereq)
20 (+12) Plague Javelin
1 (+6) Inner Sight
2 (+6) Critical Strike
6 (+6) Dodge
1 (+6) Slow Missiles
6 (+6) Avoid
1 (+6) Penetrate
20 (+6) Decoy
1 (+6) Evade
20 (+6) Valkyrie
1 (+6) Pierce

All skills can be boosted +1 with Spirit Shroud armor.
Level 33 Plague Javelin does 29921-30143 damage over 15.8 seconds
Level 33 Poison Javelin does 37096-37961 damage over 72 seconds

Mizan the Holy Freeze Merc, level 89, stats / gear:

Life: 1927, Defense: 2553, Resists: 53 C,F,P, 63 Lightning
Woestave Great Poleaxe (socketed with Amn) 417-830 damage
Guillaume's Face Winged Helm
Black Hades Chaos Armor, socketed with 2 jewels of fervor + rare 20%ED jewel

Notable optional gear: Blackhorn's Face, Steel Pillar (548-2089 damage, yields 4033 defense)

WOW!!
All in all, I'd say Emerald Lin licked Stinky_Poo's arse. The plus skills added sooooooo much to your poison damage it's frightening!!! No wonder you were able to do p8.
I never did a end game palyer breakdown for Stinky_Poo and now I'm glad b/c she'd be pretty embarrassed standing next to Emerald Lin. I think her Plague Jave maxed out at about 14K damage :worship:
Congrats on p8 Matriarch!!!!!
If you get a chance send me a screeny with with her max poison damage and her outfit. r**@**.com

2/2/2005 Status Update

Amazon
1. Exarkun--Matriarch Stinky_Poo--Clvl84--All Acts Completed
2. Crazy Runner Guy--Alexis--Clvl29--Act4
3. Insane Wayne--Matriarch Emerald Lin--Clvl89--All Acts Completed

Assassin
1. Gaz--Deathblade--Clvl11--Act1
2. Gabriel74--Slayer Strychnine--Clvl44--Act1 NM
3. AltheKiller--Slayer Tact--Clvl50--Act3 NM

Druid
1. AlterEgo--Slayer Canis_Rabie--Clvl48--Act1 NM
2. Quickdeath--Slayer Curare--Clvl63--Act4 NM
3. Falcon4eva--Slayer Vile_Jaws--Clvl49--Act1 NM

Necromancer
1. doctorgonzo
2. PSYCHO--Alice_Cooper--Clvl14--Act1
3. azn_apocalypse--Champion Pestilence--Clvl82--Act3 Hell

Role Call!!!!!!!
Okay, Who's still playin'?
Just curious. Wonderin' who's still tryin' the Poison thang....

The plus skills added sooooooo much to your poison damage it's frightening!!! No wonder you were able to do p8. I never did a end game palyer breakdown for Stinky_Poo and now I'm glad b/c she'd be pretty embarrassed standing next to Emerald Lin. I think her Plague Jave maxed out at about 14K damage :worship:

Yep, plague jav starts to build enormously after level 28, like +3000 damage every point! +6 skills is automatic, from Lancer's gloves/jav. Sigon's +1 shield is bound to pop up for most chars. Finding the +1 armor was kinda lucky, but I rarely used it. +2 on ammy/circlet was bound to occur after gambling millions on them. The Harly and the skiller were definitely my luckiest +skill finds.

Congrats on p8 Matriarch!!!!!
If you get a chance send me a screeny with with her max poison damage and her outfit. r**@**.com

Thanks. Best dressed? :lol: Emerald loves posing for the camera. Here are the screens:
Plague Javelin
Poison Javelin, highest overall damage, but never used in Hell. too slow.
Emerald in her Tal's / Shako with Ali Baba
Emerald in her queenly gear, Jeweler's Full Plate Mail / Crown stuffed with PTopaz, used through NM and most of Hell
Emerald at her deadliest wearing Spirit Shroud for max +skills.

edit: had to fix some busted links from moving screenies around.

Role Call!!!!!!!
Okay, Who's still playin'?
Just curious. Wonderin' who's still tryin' the Poison thang....

I'm still in. My progress has been slowed somewhat lately due to RL committments, but I played Pestilence for a little while tonight, got Khalim's Heart and did the Lam Esen quest. Don't worry, I plan to make this character my first ever Mat/Patriarch, if all goes well.

So I fought my way into Durance 2, but had some troubles there. It was taking too long to kill stuff, and in my impatience I died a couple of times. So I decided to go back to Normal difficulty to find the chipped amethyst I needed to make Honor. I found one quickly, and so now my merc is wielding this. Didn't have time to test it fully, but he'll see how he fares next play session.

Honor
Lance
'AmnElIthTirSol'
Two-Hand Damage: 113 to 453
Durability: 13 of 13
Required Dexterity: 78
Required Strength: 100
Required Level: 27
Spear Class - Slow Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10 Expansion
Item Level: 79
Fingerprint: 0x5382536e
+10 to Strength
+160% Enhanced Damage
+250 to Attack Rating
+9 to Minimum Damage
+9 to Maximum Damage
7% Life stolen per hit
Replenish Life +10
+1 to Light Radius
+1 to All Skill Levels
+2 to Mana After Each Kill
25% Deadly Strike
Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired), Socketed (5: 5 used)

Well, Pestilence has killed Hell Meph and moved on to Act 4 NM.

The Honor Lance has served my merc well. Monsters die much more quickly now. On top of the 7% lifesteal of the weapon, The merc is also wearing Tal Rasha's Mask for an extra 10% lifesteal and resists, so he is pretty tough to kill. His armor is still 4-socket ptopaz armor.

Durance 3 was challenging. I hate vampires, and there were tons of them down there. In the entry chamber I was simultaneously attacked by Bremm Sparkfist's pack of council members, a LE boss pack of vampires, and a non-boss pack of vampires on top of that. Meteors, firewalls, hydra bolts, and lightning bolts were everywhere, and it was only by parking Bremm's minions within the inner chamber, WP'ing back to Durance 2, and running back downstairs that I was able to separate the packs and kill them all.

Fortunately, I had drawn a good Durance 2 map, where the WP was in the very next room from the stairs down. I will probably use this to run Meph a couple more times, since his drop was INCREDIBLY disappointing. No s/u items and only one crappy rare.

From other monsters, I found an IK Forge and The Scalper, the unique Francisca, as well as a rare jewel with 27% ed and other useful mods. No Shako...I would love to find some elite unique armor soon...

Woohoo! The second run of Hell Meph was the best run ever! As usual, Meph didn't drop crap (just a unique Full Plate Mail and another Civerb's Icon), but while I was waiting for the merc to finish him off I decided to open one of the chests in the room on the left side. Out pops THIS baby.

Gheed's Fortune
Grand Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 62
Item Version: 1.10 Expansion
Item Level: 83
Fingerprint: 0x52db7fc2
107% Extra Gold from Monsters
35% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Reduces All Vendor Prices 11%

Excellent! The 107% GF is a little off the max of 160%, but I am very happy with the MF% draw. 35% out of a possible 40% is good enough for me! Woo-hoo, back to playing (and possibly running Meph one more time)

EDIT: At this point, Pestilence in his battle gear has an MF of 223%, with 319% for merc kills. This can increased temporarily by 18% by swapping gloves.

Hell Diablo has fallen to Pestilence, who is now level 85.

Two significant changes in gear. 1) My merc weapon has changed from a Honor ethereal Lance to an Honor Cryptic Axe, mainly b/c of the faster attack speed. 2) A trip back to the Hole in Act 1 Hell netted me Fleshripper, the unique Fanged Knife. I immediately socketed it with an Eld (yes, an Eld)and put it in my weapon switch to use against poison immunes and undead. It's a pretty good backup weapon.

Fleshripper
Fanged Knife
'Eld'
One-Hand Damage: 49 to 188
Durability: 31 of 36
Required Dexterity: 86
Required Strength: 42
Required Level: 68
Dagger Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10 Expansion
Item Level: 84
Fingerprint: 0x782a4984
+231% Enhanced Damage
-50% Target Defense
Prevent Monster Heal
75% Damage to Undead
+50 to Attack Rating against Undead
50% Chance of Open Wounds
25% Chance of Crushing Blow
33% Deadly Strike
Slows Target by 20%
Socketed (1: 1 used)

So now my two weapons are Blackbog's and Fleshripper.

The Chaos Sanctuary was time-consuming, but not very hard. I did spend over 500,000 gold resurrecting my merc b/c of Iron Maiden, and I myself got single-hit killed a couple of times from IM when I was using Fleshripper. Not bad for someone who was doing almost no melee damage before.

Diablo (at players 3) was easy. I managed to corner him in a spot where his pink lightning would go into a pillar and not harm me or my party members. The crushing blow from Fleshripper just owned him, and then my merc finished him off. He didn't drop anything good, which was disappointing. I've found that most of my best items are coming from random bosses.

Act 5 next, and then I will join the ranks of the ascended! My first Mat/Pat is in sight!

2/12/2005 Status Update

Amazon
1. Exarkun--Matriarch Stinky_Poo--Clvl84--All Acts Completed
2. Crazy Runner Guy--Alexis--Clvl29--Retired
3. Insane Wayne--Matriarch Emerald Lin--Clvl89--All Acts Completed

Assassin
1. Gaz--Deathblade--Clvl11--Act1
2. Gabriel74--Slayer Strychnine--Clvl44--Act1 NM
3. AltheKiller--Slayer Tact--Clvl50--Act3 NM

Druid
1. AlterEgo--Slayer Canis_Rabie--Clvl48--Act1 NM
2. Quickdeath--Slayer Curare--Clvl63--Act4 NM
3. Falcon4eva--Slayer Vile_Jaws--Clvl49--Act1 NM

Necromancer
1. doctorgonzo
2. PSYCHO--Alice_Cooper--Clvl14--Act1
3. azn_apocalypse--Champion Pestilence--Clvl85--Act5 Hell

Hello All,
It's looks as if interest has flagged a bit, so it's time to cap this tourney.

What's Your Poison Tourney will be closing at the end of February.

That gives any still interested in playing a good 2 weeks to finish up.

Sorry to do this, but I'm working on my next tourney and don't have the time to host 2 at once.

Good Luck to All!!!! May the monsters your fighting be Green with Envy...or poison...

Ekun

Damn. Well, with the end of this tournament coming up I am sorry that I didn't play more.

Managed to play this weekend and once I hit level twelve I haven't had a NDE since. Gotta love Cloak of Shadows.

So update time: Deathblade is now level 17 halfway through act 2. I will try make slayer before the deadline.

I also regret not playing this character more - this is a nice tourney concept Ekun. I've had a hard time playing the game much at all lately, and with four active characters, that doesn't give any of them much attention

I did take Canis_rabis out for a bit last night. Took it down to P1 to see if I could rush myself through a couple acts. It went pretty well & I got into the Lut Golein desert. Maxed Rabies/Creeper does amazing work at P1 in NM I found Humongous, so I have pretty decent damage on my "boss switch".

My goal was to kick it through A2...then my PC froze up...gah! I rebooted, and went to bed. Not sure how much farther I'll get with him, but hope to get a session or two in before the deadline.

Slayer Canis_rabis, lvl51, A2 NM, Dry Hills

Pestilence - Final Update

After taking the players down to 1 in Hell, Pestilence found much of Act 5 to be on the easy side. Not wanting to face bugged vipers, he skipped the Nilathak quest and headed straight for the Ancients.

I found out what all the commotion was about Hell Ancients, since it was the first time I had faced them. Man, those guys are tough, even at players 1. The first ten or so tries I didn't even try to fight them; I would see a fanatacism aura or see one of them spawn Fire Enchanted and immediately TP out. I was getting frustrated because it seemed like between the three of them, at least one of them would spawn FE every time I rolled them.

Finally, after several more FE rolls, I decided to take the risk and fight them while one of them (Korlic, the polearm guy) was FE. On this particular roll none of their other mods were that bad (Teleportation, Stone Skin, etc). No Cursed and no auras, either. I knew about the FE bug but had never really experienced it, so I thought if I kept my distance from them and let my merc tank them then I might be OK.

So we fought. During the battle, my merc and golem meleed them while I remained just within poison nova range of the Ancients, and I kept casting P Nova, at the same time throwing bone walls in front of Madawc to block his throwing axes from hitting my party. It was pretty successful, and Korlic, the FE one, soon went down in an explosion of bone and fire. I breathed a sigh of relief when Korlic died...I was in the clear! We started working on Talic at that point, who was WWing all over the place and trying to kill my merc. I was standing a few yards away from him, casting P Nova, when suddenly, without taking a hit or anything, Pestilence's life bulb emptied, he gave the necro scream and dropped dead. What the hell? I guess Talic must have been FE too, and I didn't bother to notice. Although I thought I checked his mods....unless Korlic's dead body managed to kill me somehow...oh well. Use WP, retrieve body, try again. (I can see how this could be really scary in HC).

I went through about twenty more rolls before I finally found another set that I liked and decided to take them on again. I think Korlic was still FE, but I made sure that the other two were not. Plus, I made extra sure to keep my distance from all of them this time. My merc and golem pounded away at the two melee guys while I was effectively able to neutralize Madawc with bone walls. As before, I killed Korlic first. Then Talic. Then, for the finishing touch, I trapped poor Madawc in a corner of the map with Bone Walls, where he just stood, his axes unable to hit anything, while my merc pounded him into submission.

I had done it! I had beaten Hell Ancients! Woohoo!

The rest of the Worldstone Keep was sort of anticlimactic. I got to Baal and as before, my party's slowing effect made quick work of him on players 1. My reward was the unique mace, the unique bastard sword, and Civerb's Icon. Normally I would not complain about 2 uniques and a set, but did they have to come out of the lowest TC possible?

So that's all she wrote. Pestilence shall now be known as Patriarch Pestilence. My first Pat/Mat, and I am proud of this one given the restrictions placed on him (this would have been a LOT easier with Lower Resist, I think). I think he's a great MF character, and I definitely see a lot of Pit runs in his future.

Pestilence
Level 86
All Acts Completed

Final Equipment
"Lore" Runeword Full Helm (+1 all skills)
Corruption Noose Amulet (+2 to Poison and Bone Skills, +61 mana)
Blackbog's Sharp/Fleshripper socketed with Eld
Skullder's Ire socketed with Ort
"Rhyme" Runeword Large Shield/The Ward Gothic Shield
Dread Knuckle Demonhide Gloves (Fire Resist +21%, Lightning Resist +29%
16% MF, 10% IAS)
Lizard's Ring of Fortune (25 MF)
Ghoul Chain Heavy Belt (+54 to Life, Fire Resist +16%, Lightning Resist +22%)
Grim Turn Ring (17 Str, Fire Resist +20%)
Cruel Spur Greaves (Fire Resist +32%, Cold Resist +31%, 11% MF)
Gheed's Fortune, 1 poison/bone skiller, several other assorted charms

Merc Gear:
Tal Rasha's Mask
"Honor" Runeword Cryptic Axe
Jeweler's Gothic Plate (96% MF)

Skills
9 Golem Mastery, 1 Summon Resist, 6 Clay Golem
20 PDagger/Explosion/Nova, 16 Bone Wall
1 Amp Dmg

Poison damage
Dagger: 14K - 16K
Explosion: really high, I forget the exact value
Nova: (roughly) 4000 over 2 sec

Although I thought I checked his mods....unless Korlic's dead body managed to kill me somehow...oh well. Use WP, retrieve body, try again. (I can see how this could be really scary in HC).

That's part of the bug. Korlic's dead body probably did manage to kill you. Periodically an explosion will go off where the FE boss died. I've experienced the explosion once or twice in normal or nightmare, where it manages to not be deadly.

2/20/2005 Status Update

Amazon
1. Exarkun--Matriarch Stinky_Poo--Clvl84--All Acts Completed
2. Crazy Runner Guy--Alexis--Clvl29--Retired
3. Insane Wayne--Matriarch Emerald Lin--Clvl89--All Acts Completed

Assassin
1. Gaz--Deathblade--Clvl17--Act2
2. Gabriel74--Slayer Strychnine--Clvl44--Act1 NM
3. AltheKiller--Slayer Tact--Clvl50--Act3 NM

Druid
1. AlterEgo--Slayer Canis_Rabie--Clvl51--Act2 NM
2. Quickdeath--Slayer Curare--Clvl63--Act4 NM
3. Falcon4eva--Slayer Vile_Jaws--Clvl49--Act1 NM

Necromancer
1. doctorgonzo
2. PSYCHO--Alice_Cooper--Clvl14--Act1
3. azn_apocalypse--Patriarch Pestilence--Clvl86--All Acts Completed

Congrats azn, nice update.

I rerolled the Ancients at least a dozen times. One of them ended up with FE, but the other mods were less threatening, so I took a chance with it. I stayed a screen away when the FE burst, and avoided the spot out of superstition. I'm glad now that I did. I never knew the Ancients posed a post-death FE risk. I thought that was reserved for Pindle-type zombies. Another lesson learned for me.

Nice dagger collection. They work well with your Necro. Emerald also had a knack for finding unique daggers. I think Emerald and Pestilence combined found all the unique daggers except for the legend spike.

Hello to All still Playin',
Due to RL I won't be able to start my new tourney for awhile, so I'm going to extend What's Your Poison Tourney through March.
Sorry about going back and forth on this. I hope more of you will continue to play.
FYI, My Poison Javvy is now my primary MF'er. So, there's more than one reason to continue playing your Poison Characters...

Good Luck to all!

Ekun

Not sure if anyone is still playin' these characters...

Stinky_Poo has continued to be my main MF'er. Found a Mara's and an Ethereal Lasher the other day...

Well, this tourney is closing soon, so let me know if you have any updates...

Ekun