[2006] "Untwinked, Coffin Dodger Hell Journey Tournament" [by Morathi]

Cygnus said:
GG bladejj, nice to know I'm not the only one still playing đź‘Ť

Insane Wayne said:
Curious that the decoy is sturdier than the valk? What levels are they? Maxed decoy is a great skill, but I've never seen one combined with a weak valk. Usually valk gets all the attention.

One hard point each, with a sick +6 to passives boosting that. The decoy gets 170% of my life, ~1550, and 28% resist all. Add to that "skills like Evade and Dodge" (Arreat Summit's wording), and she can take a few hits. Superior to a level 7 valk. When 'Peace' does its thing, I get a level 15 valk, still with only 1 point D/A/E, but with about ~1200 life, probably better defence than the decoy and 32% resist all. Comparable to decoy, probably somewhat better, and damage is decent too.

Good that you made me do the comparison: now I know where all future skill points are going! I had to choose between decoy and pierce. Hard points in decoy make the valkyrie stronger as well, and definitely appears to be the better choice.
 
Cygnus said:
She did it! Matriarch Penthesilea, level 83.

The Foothills and the Frigid Highlands had Burning Dead Archers, Slingers, Blunderbores and Death Brawlers (LI). Decoy diverted the archer fire and LF cleaned them up. Arreat Plateau provided the first "interesting" monster: LI PoI Skeleton Mages. These were low HP, low damage creatures that the merc/valk pair could kill easily, with the occasional jab help. Crystalline Passage had Infidels, Minotaurs and cold Skeleton Mages. The first two would be a terror to most characters; not this one, though. Incidentally, the decoy tanked the 'taurs much better than the valk.

After some thought, I decided that Anya had to be rescued. Not for the extra resists, I didn't need any, but for gambling (Pindle's portal is a nice bonus too) I nervously stepped into the Frozen River area and cast a decoy a few steps away. Nothing. Move a bit and recast decoy. Cold Mages and Rot Walkers. That's two out of three. Guess what the third monster type was? Yup, the next decoy invited the all-too-familiar white streaks of lightning. LI, PoI, 90% physical resist gloams. My "solution" was to use the wand of level 2 lower resist on switch to remove the immunities. Charged Strike against 93% lightning resist and merc/valk against 90% physical resist worked as long as I handled only a few (2 or 3 at the most) at a time. The high-flying amazon was suddenly slowed to a crawl, but there was progress, and that's all that counts. This pack gave me the most trouble: might aura, mana burn = lots of trips to town. The LR charges took about 2500 each to repair, the entire trip to the Frozen River cost 400,000 gold (mostly merc revives)

The Crystalline Passage had Succubi, Vipers and Leapers in the next session. Glacial Trail, Frozen Tundra and Icy Cellar had Bats, Cats, Rats, Goats, Vipers, Minotaurs, Archers, Rogues and Frozen Creepers. Normal service had resumed.

The Ancients: On the first try, the merc died in a jiffy, re-roll. Second try: isolated and killed Korlic (and dang nearly got killed by the fire blast), and then lost the merc to a cursed Talic. Third and fourth rolls: cursed and cursed. No thanks. Fifth roll: Talic was LE and LI, but other than that, nothing very difficult. Isolated Korlic (FE teleport) again and killed him. Madawc and Talic were both LI, so Plague Javelin all the way. I lost the merc when Madawc was about to die as I didn't hit the rejuv in time. Grr. I hope I don't have to do this again. Soon it was Talic vs. me, with the valk/decoy as distractions. The valk got owned by Talic and held up the timer for PJ, so I decided to go without her help. Frequent recasts of decoy (which could survive a whirl, but not much more) kept the heat off me, and Talic fell.

WSK 1 had Invaders, Defilers and Succubi. Nice! WSK 2 had Flayers, Vipers and ... yep, Souls. Still, no stair trap. Very soon, I attracted a Possessed Black Soul: cannot be cursed! Jabbed away, and for a while, it looked like I'll lose the battle against monster HP regeneration, but the valkyrie occasionally spawned with a good damage spear, and we eventually killed it. I saw more champs just around the corner, and decided to explore in the other direction instead :) More gloams, including a couple of boss packs, and a convicted Viper boss that spawned next to a pack of gloams made this a painstakingly slow clear. Eventually, I located the waypoint and the exit next to one another and took a break.

Some LI beetles blocked the path between the waypoint and the exit in the next session. WSK 3 had Flayers, more Flayers and Minotaurs. The Throne level had Succubi, Greater Mummies and Dolls. Lovely, no more gloams. Baal's minions were unsuspecting LF victims, Lister included, and Baal himself got manhandled by CS.

Finds: Silkweave (Crystalline Passage), Islestrike (Frozen River), Viperfork (WSK 1), Witherstring (WSK 2), Guillaume's Face and Twitchthroe (Baal).

Thanks Morathi for an easy-rules tournament where I could wet my beak. The difficult part was the absence of the ATMA stash, which really constrained equipment choices. As for the character, what can I say? Extremely defensive, with two powerful pack-killer skills and an unparalleled boss killer. No monster was a problem unless it answered to either 'gloam' or 'Ancient'. No deaths, no NDEs even. The closest I came to dying was Korlic's death blast, which knocked off about 80% of my health. Finishing the game without getting killed somehow doesn't seem that big an achievement: I'm sure I can do it again with this build! A gloam stair trap is another matter, though.

I'll post stats, equipment, etc. in a separate Mat thread.
 
Insane Wayne said:
Nice finish Cygnus đź‘Ť

I guess there's no need for a strong valk/decoy, when you can level the field in seconds against most packs! And with CS against big-body monsters, I bet the merc could hardly keep up. Nice job against the conviction vipers/gloams. That's a nasty combo. I'm surprised you broke that boss gloam's immunity. I would've guessed Magic Resistance would stack with LI. Clearly it doesn't work that way, good news for the ol' lower resist trick! I relied on it with my light zon and it's a time-saver for sure. It's expensive to repair but absolutely worth it.

Congrats! :cool:
 
Morathi said:
WE HAVE A WINNER!!!!!!!! Congrats Cygnus on your mat...nice work. It was great to see you so commited to the tourny even after it died down due to other more exciting tournaments being introduced :undecided: . Good job and hope you enjoyed playing her.

Morathi đź‘Ť đź‘Ť
 
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