[2007] Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven [by Merlin The Wizzard]

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

It's time for another update.

Shockfrosted defeated Diablo. (This is the drop - yeah, a lot of no drop rolled )

I started my journey in the Outer Steppes where I met my first boss - a leaper. Was hoping for more Venom Lords...let's see...here's my second boss. Still no Venom Lords (my bounty mob).

Ah, here they are. Notice my attempt to turn one of them into a boss. It failed. I have yet to understand the mechanics of Monster Shrines, it seems :scratchchin: But finally a Venom Lord boss appeared. The drop (and any further drops from Venom Lord bosses, as it turned out) weren't useful though...

Cursed Fana Spitters? Check.

Next: Plains of Despair. Of course with Burning Souls. Fana Burning Souls. Noticed the difference 90% Lightning Resistance can make as compared to 75%. This Holy Freeze Ghost boss took me some time, since I was constantly drained of my Mana and had to rely on normal attacks. Slow normal attacks, additionally slowed by Holy Freeze.

Izual was a piece of cake. On players 1, his HPs aren't that great. CBF is great btw. Couldn't use the rares he dropped, but I was thankful for the gold, since I spent around 300.000 on resurrecting my merc in Act IV.

City of Damned was next. A blue Sacred Armor drop made me wish for more MF. How fitting for a Paladin to find the Cathedral of the Damned. Of course I smashed all Evil Forces

A bounty mob Hel Rune drop could prove useful for Act V, but I doubt it.

Extra Strong Cursed Balrogs. Check.

Another lucky drop - this time a Gul from HF - in this tournament, also it won't be useful for the Bountyhunter himself...

Upon entering the Chaos Sanctuary the next Cursed boss Balrog was already awaiting me. Since they're so big it was no problem though to fight the boss mob one at a time in the doorway.

Cursed Extra Strong really was quite a fashion. This time an Oblivion Knight. Bonus Pic: Where's Waldo?

The next seal boss, Lord de Seis, almost got me killed. Thos Extra Fast Extra Strong Fana Knights got me trapped in a corner (sorry, no pic, was busy surviving at that time) and I used almost my entire supply of Full Rejuvination Potions...I escaped miraculously and finally faced Lord de Seis alone. Who's laughing now?!?

Ah, Infector of Souls. My bounty mob SU of this Act. Problem: Mob is extra fast all the time. Next problem: Balrogs are sturdy. Third problem: There are plenty of Balrogs there but nowhere to run (dead end to the left, mob to the right). So I chose a spot where the Balrogs came running to me but turned around immediately without hitting me, trying to hit one of them with Smite, quickly run around the Balrog hit, and to stunlock it with Smite against a wall. Worked perfectly with the first. While fighting the second, on the other hand, I ran out of Mana, which made it possible for the Balrog to escape, while I went right after him thanks to holding down left click but not Shift A group of Balrogs immediately came after me, so I fled to town and took the WP back to the RoF, from where I ran to the CS.
Once I arrived, it was easy to fight a maximum of 2 or 3 Balrogs a time until I finally faced the Infector of Souls. Who, btw, was kind enought to drop me this goody - a Riphook. Slows target, Open Wounds...the perfect addition to my arsenal

Diablo was the usual piece of cake for a Paladin with 90% Lightning Resistance and a merc with Open Wounds and PMH.

Here are the readouts from Infector's drop:

Riphook
Razor Bow
Two-Hand Damage: 23 to 64
Required Dexterity: 62
Required Strength: 25
Required Level: 31
Bow Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: **
Fingerprint: 0x97a262ff
+35 to Mana
+192% Enhanced Damage
9% Life stolen per hit
30% Increased Attack Speed
30% Chance of Open Wounds
Slows Target by 30%

Fool's Rune Sword of the Giant
One-Hand Damage: 10 to 83
Durability: 39 of 44
Required Dexterity: 79
Required Strength: 103
Required Level: 51
Sword Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: **
Fingerprint: 0x946287dd
+10 to Strength
+41 to Maximum Damage (Based on Character Level)
+1369 to Attack Rating (Based on Character Level)

Now Harrogath awaits a Hero.

Conqueror Shockfrosted the Teslafroster and Jemali, the BA Town Guard, level 83, Hell Bloody Foothills next.

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

Oh, that boss almost killed me on his death due to CE. I had around 10 HPs left, I guess...

Are you completely NUTS???

You have the time to take a screenie, but you don´t have the time to get offa that boss in a big bloody hurry!??


Congrats, of course, for surviving that and everything else on the way to Harrogath. It was kind of the Act III temples to be nice to you. That´s the kind of stairs trap I like to see if there must be one. Sometimes it looks like this, you know.




Mavi has been busy - she´s a Destroyer now. :alright:

Scariest moment since the last update was against, I kid you not, Mephisto. It started off well enough but it soon became far too scary for my liking. The combo of
- bad resists
- no tanking help (other than Phaet´s chilling)
- bad blocking
- unwillingness to use any rejuves
- lack of a huge life pool
led to some serious problems. Yes, NDE, more than once.

I ended up Moat Tricking off the remaining 85% of his life. Took forever...


Diablo? Give me level 1 BoS, Venom, Blade Fury and a bunch of potions and I can do it.


This bugger was also quite scary. Appropriate, since those are the monsters I hunt. This was in Abbadon, so Mavi was only level 38-39 and the Phoenix Strike was still quite weak.

I really enjoyed this act, which is rare for me. I normally think that Act V Normal is the most boring act in the game. What was different now was probably the fact that I had to fight a lot myself - normally, the merc kills nearly everything.

I am not allowed to use it, but this is probably the coolest Anya reward claw I´ve seen in Normal.

Due to Merlin´s evil tournaments rules, I had some important choices to make now: what to imbue, socket and personalize. This is my socketables situation before making the choices.

I had three imbue candidates: Boots, Plated Belt and Circlet. My two earlier characters have chosen boots for the first imbue. It was more complicated here, because my magical Chain Boots have SU status. So if I would roll something nice on the Boots, I´d have to personalize them to be able to use them. Also, as you can see from the screenie, I have everything I need to craft those Chain Boots. However, such a crafting is better left until level 60, when I can get 30% FRW. (I hope that checking out the ilvl of the boots in ATMA isn´t cheating. Although this time I could just have checked out the mlvl of Sarina, since she dropped them...). I decided to put my faith in that future crafting, then picked the circlet over the belt because it has better resist potential. Result can be seen in my list.

I don´t have the Ancients´ Pledge option this time. I have no 3s shield and the ones that´d get 3 sockets from Larzuk are ethereal.
My bountymob act boss, Baal, dropped some interesting stuff, including a shield with a kickass blocking percentage. I decided to socket it and put my Ort in it. I can´t walk around with negative resist when hitting LE bosses...

Clinging to the dream of a future Crushing Blow weapon, I personalized some 2s Blade Talons.

Current Gear:
* Rare Circlet with 16-49 fire damage, +4 max damage, MDR by 2 and two sockets (in bountymob areas, I use a 2s Helm with two flawless topazes instead)
* Amulet of Greed (31; SU status)
* Weird (+419 AR) Scimitar of Gore (wildcard status; AR with PS increases with over 60% with this!)
* Light Plate (in bountymob areas, I use a 1s Leather Armor with flawed topaz instead)
* Rare Gothic Shield 'Ort' (61% blocking, +3 STR, Resist Fire/Poison 3, Cold 16, Lightning 38; wildcard status)
* Strong Heavy Gloves of Fortune (22)
* Ring of the Fox (8)
* Plated Belt
* Iron (23) Ring
* Sturdy Chain Boots of Remedy (SU status)

Weapon switch
* Rare Throwing Axe with a little bonus AR and 21/4 poison damage (SU status)
* 2s Bone Shield (guess what rune I want!)

* Large Charm of Strength (2)
* Large Charm of Frost


Merc:
* Rare Skull Cap with a little FHR and cold + lightning resists
* ethereal rare Scimitar (just a little bonus AR and damage; SU status)
* 1s Leather Armor with chipped topaz
* ethereal Kite Shield

Baal also dropped this:

Dread Grinder
Morning Star
One-Hand Damage: 7 to 16
Durability: 54 of 72
Required Strength: 36
Required Level: 36
Mace Class - Slow Attack Speed
+149 to Attack Rating
Fire Resist +9%
Adds 1-233 lightning damage
150% Damage to Undead

Could be useful for finishing off FE bosses from a distance (with BF).


Destroyer Mavi the Phoenix Strike Assassin and Rhadge the Cold Iron Wolf, level 49, Moo Moo Farm next

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

Are you completely NUTS???

You have the time to take a screenie, but you don´t have the time to get offa that boss in a big bloody hurry!??


Congrats, of course, for surviving that and everything else on the way to Harrogath. It was kind of the Act III temples to be nice to you. That´s the kind of stairs trap I like to see if there must be one. Sometimes it looks like this, you know.

Well, I was Zealing away, so I didn't have a chance to stop it...

Anyways, what the Boss in the Durance didn't manage, Star Tongue accomplished.
I took some steps when I entered the cave, only to see those Claw Vipers charging at me, Extra Fast of course. And Holy Freeze Aura activated. I tried to get around them and was almost killed while trying, so I had to retreat to the Crystalline Passage, creating a nasty stair trap myself.:banghead:

As you can see from the picture, there had to be another Boss with BA Aura nearby, too...it wasn't the Walking Dead, though.

Of course, if I really wanted to beat the game, I could have just reloaded and have another go at the cave, but I'd consider that cheating by the means of a tournament. I was that stupid to rouse the mob, I had to face the consequences...

The bad thing is, up till the Crystalline Passage everything went smooth...a lot of ranged monsters, but they posed no problems whatsoever. No Spike Fiends at the Foothills, which was very lucky (2% Poison Resistance) and I even managed to quest without my merc (only 500k gold left...)

Thanks to Riphook I even managed to defeat this nasty CE LE Conviction Succubus boss (thanks to OW, CB, and Fire Damage from Enchant), but - alas! I am defeated.

Good luck for Mavi, jiansonz! I doubt I'll start another bountyhunter, although it was great fun Thanks for such a great tournament idea, Merlin, and I am eager to read your updates, jiansonz!

RIP, Conqueror Shockfrosted the Teslafroster and Jemali, the BA Town Guard, level 84.

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

Anyways, what the Boss in the Durance didn't manage, Star Tongue accomplished.
I took some steps when I entered the cave, only to see those Claw Vipers charging at me, Extra Fast of course. And Holy Freeze Aura activated. I tried to get around them and was almost killed while trying, so I had to retreat to the Crystalline Passage, creating a nasty stair trap myself.:banghead:

Oh no! :hanky:

I can clearly see the trouble here: they were really fast, and you were slowed. And Cursed on top of that! I am also not surprised that lack of really good crowd control played a part in your demise.

Players whine about the Tomb Vipers on Nihlathak´s level. I´m telling you, they are NOTHING compared to snake packs like these, when you encounter them in an early part of an area! The Tomb Vipers are never encountered in situations like this, and there are no boss packs of them (except possibly from the one Evil Urn in that area).

Amazingly impressive run from you anyway. Only a little over half an act to go (although Crystalline Passage on Hell usually does mark the start of the 'Playtime´s Over' part of a Guardian run).

Of course, if I really wanted to beat the game, I could have just reloaded and have another go at the cave, but I'd consider that cheating by the means of a tournament. I was that stupid to rouse the mob, I had to face the consequences...

I couldn´t agree with you more. Save and reload are for wimps.

Thanks to Riphook I even managed to defeat this nasty CE LE Conviction Succubus boss (thanks to OW, CB, and Fire Damage from Enchant)

Yay! Talk about a Witch from Hell...

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

Act I NM for Mavi can be summarized like this:
Be careful.
Toughen up.

The 'careful' part was mostly about trying to avoid tanking dangerous monsters any more than necessary. Most of the time, I could use the less dangerous monsters to charge up and release PS on, then use MB to keep the boss in the flames. And if I do have to use the boss itself to charge/release Meteors, it´s even more important to use Mind Blast to avoid some heavy damage.

The Countess cursed me with a rather crappy magical armor. It´s even a type that can´t be crafted. Well, at least it is resistance, plus I can put on the merc if I want to wear something else. Countess also gave me El and Ral runes.

My imbue was decided since a while ago - the belt. Since everything I desired the most was already available, there was no time to waste:

Bramble Clasp
Plated Belt
Defense: 15
Durability: 20 of 24
Required Strength: 60
+1 to Strength
+15 to Life
+17 to Maximum Stamina
+26% Enhanced Defense
Lightning Resist +24%
17% Faster Hit Recovery

Charsi, you rock!


With much of my resist gear leaning towards lightning, I could now reach decent resists with Fade and potions, against everything except fire. I decided to put Qual-Kehk´s Ral in my circlet.

Fouldog´s pack had me worried, but I managed to reach a great fighting situation - Rhadge could reach them but they could not reach us.

However, Rhadge was not particularly useful here.

The 'toughen up' part in the act consisted of (other than baby steps in gear improval) five more levels of Fade, and every stat point earned going to Vitality. My goal is to keep the blocking with my rare Gothic Shield at 50%. There is still a little margin left before I need to invest in DEX to accomplish that.

Andariel was quite scary, but could not take the heat when it mattered. No rejuves needed.


Current Gear:
* Rare Circlet with 16-49 fire damage 'Ral', +4 max damage, MDR by 2 and one open socket (in bountymob areas, I use a 2s Helm with two flawless topazes instead)
* Amulet of Greed (31; SU status)
* Weird (+419 AR) Scimitar of Gore (wildcard status; AR with PS increases with over 60% with this!)
* Tangerine (5) Ring Mail (SU status)
* Rare Gothic Shield 'Ort' (61% blocking, +3 STR, Resist Fire/Poison 3, Cold 16, Lightning 38; wildcard status)
* Strong Heavy Gloves of Fortune (22)
* Crimson (7) Ring of the Jackal (4)
* Rare Plated Belt (see above)
* Steel (59) Ring of Measure (5)
* Sturdy Chain Boots of Remedy (SU status)

Weapon switch
* Rare Morning Star with 1-233 Lightning damage; wildcard status
* 2s Bone Shield (guess what rune I want!)

* Iron (62) Grand Charm of Blight
* Large Charm of Strength (2)
* Large Charm of Frost


Rhadge the Iron Wolf:
* Rare Skull Cap with a little FHR and cold + lightning resists
* ethereal rare Scimitar (just a little bonus AR and damage; SU status)
* 1s Leather Armor with flawed topaz
* ethereal Kite Shield


Destroyer Mavi the Phoenix Strike Assassin and Rhadge the Cold Iron Wolf, level 53, Lut Gholein Sewers next

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

Yikes, has it really been 20 months since I last played Mavi?! :shocked:

Anyway, I really felt like playing a character that has a large element of cooperation with their merc. My characters in the Craftsman and Exposure tournies do not have a merc at all, and the one for my Gold Diggers Blaze sorc seems to have another agenda than she has...

This is also my favourite build, and the Bountyhunter's tourney rules are fascinating, so this feels like a good choice to play.


Progress is easy for Mavi and Rhadge. Apart from pumping the Phoenix Strike synergies more, I am really doing Hell viable damage here against the semi-wimpy Nightmare monsters. I still have to watch out against boss packs, though. When Mavi is forced to use Fade, she isn´t particularly fast with her swings.

Stony Tomb level 1 was intense at the start. There was a lightning mage boss pack with Fanaticism in the large starting room, plus a regular Horror pack and one with Champions that I happened to wake up. Had to do some wild portal parking here to avoid some major pain.

I was really close to getting the rights to use Duriel´s drop in this act. I didn´t find my bounty monsters for this act (bats) until the last floor of Halls of the Dead. The bats there gave me some useless crap (magical Tusk Sword, rare Flamberge). The only good item I got from them was an Ort rune.

Now I have a long time ahead of me with no potential equipment drops. My next bountymobs will likely be Gloams in Great Marsh and/or Swampy Pit, then I have Sarina and Riftwing waiting for me later in the act.

Still thinking about the crafting chance I have (I currently only have one jewel). Crafting my SU status Chain Boots at clvl 60 still feels like my best chance to improve gear, but if I find a Gem Shrine I can upgrade an ameythyst and craft my SU status amulet instead. Amulets sure can get some nice random affixes.


Destroyer Mavi the Phoenix Strike Assassin and Rhadge the Cold Iron Wolf, level 55, NM Far Oasis next

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

Nicely done! Good to see you are digging up old tournament characters, too - I started to feel a little bit weird when I dusted off my 3-year old obsession characters

Would Duriel's drop have been good? (Or at least better as the bat-stuff?) I recall you really had tough luck with you bountymobs...at least there's Icehawk Riftwing in the Sewers, because bats otherwise are pretty rare.

Good luck!

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

Would Duriel's drop have been good? (Or at least better as the bat-stuff?)

The thing is that many of my item slots have SU status already (all three weapon slots, amulet, boots, one armor, maybe something else?) so they can´t be replaced by equipment dropped by my regular bounty critters. Items in a Duriel drop would have been 'wildcard' items: items that I could have used in any slot but that I also could have sold if they were crap.


Yeah, my monster draw isn´t particularly good: melee roges (that aren´t spearwomen), bats, gloams, vile mothers, Frenzytaurs and Baal. No monster type that is really common.

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

Mavi and Rhadge didn´t have much trouble in Far Oasis, Maggot Lair or Lost City.

When it was time for Fangskin´s lair, I was a bit nervous. We approached slowly. First thing that happened was this. A minion that bounced around got nailed by the ice shots. "I must take advantage of this!", I thought. I rushed up to the frozen snake and quickly started on two Meteors. As I thought, Fangskin was waiting just around the corner. I backed off and started to spam Mind Blast on Fangskin to push her back into the flames. (Fangskin is the snake just by the pillar.) It worked out perfectly.

Against FELE Fire Eye, we took advantage of the fact that he can not open doors. This is v1.11, where the FE bug is still quite present. When she uses BoS, Mavi´s lightning resist is just in the thirties. Fire resist is 12... Melee with FELE or CELE bosses simply isn´t the done thing.

Here´s an even worse elemental threat. When this boss did its 'beetle rush', I tried to have it target Rhadge while I fed him potions. When it wan´t rushing, this boss was thankfully quite slow when chilled. Mavi´s poison damage charm was extremely useful, once again. When regeneration is stopped, the ice shots do pretty good damage against monsters with low cold resist, like this boss.

Duriel was fought on /players 1. I went with Burst of Speed to shorten the fight. Buffing with thawing potion took Mavi´s cold resist to the mid-thirties, which wasn´t too bad. Constant chilling by Rhadge, 50% blocking and 711 life were good enough for me not needing any rejuves, just 6 or so big red potions.

Mavi reached level 60 a short while after starting on the big tomb. I decided to craft her boots. Level 60 meant that all three FRW affixes would be in the pool of posssible random affixes. The result:

Havoc Blazer
Chain Boots
Defense: 14
Durability: 10 of 16
Kick Damage: 6 to 12
Required Strength: 30
Required Level: 31
Item Version: 1.10 Expansion
Item Level: 43
Fingerprint: 0xeb958ea
+5 to Maximum Stamina
+40% Enhanced Defense
+33 Defense vs. Melee
Attacker Takes Damage of 4
24% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
5% Chance to cast Level 4 Frost Nova when struck

Stamina? Defense boost? MF?
WTF? Where is my Faster Run, and where are my big resists? Oh dangit!
(I am not against the MF, of course not. It´s just that it´s only useful in a tiny potion of the game - when I fight trophymob critters...)

I still have hopes for my amulet, but I need a couple of things to be able to craft it:
- Another Ral rune. I am guaranteed to get one at the second quest in Act V.
- A gem shrine, or another way to get a perfect amethyst. Hellforge reward has potential here.
- Another jewel. I put my hope for this on the gloams...

I have misclicked twice, and reflexively saved Rhadge with a full rejuve once (gotta stop with that - it´s better that he dies 20 times than I use a purple!) so I am down to only 4 full purples now. I can cube a few more from gems, but I´d rather have those gems for other uses, of course.


Finally I can meet some trophymob critters. Let´s hope ALL the Act III dungeons that can have bats will have them. It will also be interesting to see what I get from my two Trophy Superuniques in the act - Riftwing and Sarina.


Destroyer Mavi the Phoenix Strike Assassin and Rhadge the Cold Iron Wolf, level 60, NM Spider Forest next

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

Sorry about the boots...

Are you playing older characters using the older versions of D2 you started them with? How do you switch between versions?

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

Are you playing older characters using the older versions of D2 you started them with? How do you switch between versions?

Yes, characters that I started in 1.11 get played in that version.
(Although Mavi would have LOVED 1.13 where assassins get to keep charge-ups almost twice as long!).

Before applying the 1.13 patch, I copied the whole D2 folder to another place on the HD. Then I applied the patch, causing the change of one of the installs. Now I can just start whichever of the shortcuts to the .exe files I want to.

Strangely enough, both games use the Save folder for the 1.13 install, but as long as I do not open any of the 1.11 characters in 1.13, it works fine keeping them as 1.11 characters.

(Screenshots I take go to whichever folder the respective .exe is in.)

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

Wow, this tournament is several kinds of crazy. I'll have to go back and read through more of it when I have some time.

OT re: versions - I did the same thing with the folders. D2 keeps a single registry entry as to where the save folder is, so i used some advice dug up in another thread to build a batch file to apply a registry change. Whenever i'm swapping versions, i just use a shortcut that runs the batch and launches from the appropriate directory - saves me the risk of crossing versions/characters if i'm not paying enough attention.

As well evidenced by this thread though, you are about several (thousand) times more patient and methodical than I am regarding D2, so probably not as much of an issue . I would guess you've come across this in the past, just posting if anybody like me is reading and curious.

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

Wow! You're still at that! :crazyeyes: Now it all comes back to me - the fame, the glory, the adrenaline rush, the ... deeds in Act 5 Hell

That really is a hell of a tournament - both in difficulty and fun though! Hope you're lucky with your trophy mob drops!

About the installs: If you want separate save folders you can rename the D2 folders every time you switch versions. Let's say you installed D2 under d: \diablo 2, and have a 1.11 copy under d: \diablo 2 1.11, you can rename the latter to "diablo2" and the first to "diablo 2 1.13" and start 1.11 with your regular shortcut (you only need one that way) and have two different save folders. That's what I do and it works fine for me (even though I do it manually - you could write a batch file ofc).

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

Mavi have fought quite a few bountymob critters this act. At least if you compare with the last couple of areas. She hadn´t seen any since Halls of the Dead...

This was nice. At least here in NM where thay can be frozen and aren´t deadly unless you get shot by many of them.
I got a few gems and rings (including a +24% 'of Fortune') from these wisps. No jewel or charm, though.

Mavi´s resists in MF gear are not impressive, but the most relevant elemental resist here in the Marsh is OK.

Now what bountymob critters did the dungeons offer me? Let´s see:
* A few bats (including a boss pack) in Arachnid Lair.
* Bats on both possible floors in Flayer Dungeon.
* Wisps in Swampy Pit level 1 and bats on level 2.

I got my 4th charm from a bat. Small Charm with +6 mana.

The last thing I needed to do this session was to figure out a way to kill this bugger in a reasonably safe manner. How the heck do I accomplish that? I didn´t dare to try to fight Stormy up close so I could arrange a big fire patch. His fat fire resist would make it a drawn-out fight, and very nasty FELE bolts would be spewing out like crazy. He isn´t exactly gentle with his physical damage either, against a character with 50% blocking and just over 700 life...


Rhadge should be able to kill him, but he needs Mavi to keep Stormy poisoned. Mavi´s best charm by far is an Iron (62) Grand Charm of Blight (6 over 3s) and it´s one reason the progress has not been so bad. 3 seconds is a short time, though, and when I tried to simply keep the distance to Stormtree, all the fiddling with Rhadge needing potions, him not backing away fast enough, Stormy working up a Frenzy, etc. was enough that I failed to keep up the poison hold for long. Mavi´s to hit chance with Blade Fury is not great either.

I tried to portal park Stormy in one of those narrow cul-de-sacs you can sometimes find east of the river opposite to where you enter side alcoves (see the screenshot). We got him down to 40% at one time, then his erratic movement took him too far away for Rhadge´s shots. When I had done another portal parking here, he was back to full. Sigh...

Can I get Prevent Monster Heal? I had found a 3-socketed Fuscina earlier (dropped by a bat), and I actually had the runes for Malice. Since the El rune is from Normal Countess, such a weapon would be usable (because it´d get SuperUnique status). But Mavi wasn´t strong enough to use it - not even if she would put her perfect amethyst in the empty socket in her circlet...
HF merc, maybe? But PMH does not work for mercs...OK, Malice has 100% OW as well. Hmm, that could work if I give him plenty of healing potions and maybe use a couple of Mind Blasts...

BUT... I did not like that idea. Why not? Item priorities.
You see, I only have one Eth rune (or rather, I have 4 Nef runes). Mavi´s dream is to get a Shael rune from the Hellforge so she can make a Rhyme Bone Shield. It would really suck if she did get a Shael rune and had no Eth at that time!

Nope, gotta come up with something else .

I tried portal parking and hitting him over water near the entrance to Swampy Pit, both on the peninsula and the narrow strip of land to the left. The former wasn´t good at all, the latter was better, but still worse than the first place I tried. I think I got him down to 75% at best.

This isn´t working either...

Hm, how about a longer poison duration? This emerald I just upgraded to flawless has 6 seconds poison duration in a weapon, and I have a rare Flail with two sockets that a bat boss dropped earlier. If I put something else in the other socket that makes this Flail get SU status, I can use it! My only options were Countess runes - I had an El rune and two Nef runes.

Hey, Nef actually makes a lot of sense! I am no stranger to having Knockback on a BF weapon (Crushflange has been a standard BF switch weapon for my Phoenix Strikers in the SU worshipper tournies). So, behold Mavi´s homemade tool of "destruction":

Fiend Grinder
Flail
'Nef'
One-Hand Damage: 1 to 36
Durability: 22 of 30
Required Dexterity: 35
Required Strength: 41
Required Level: 30
Mace Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10 Expansion
Item Level: 53
Fingerprint: 0x99a07bbc
+51% Enhanced Damage
+59 poison damage over 6 seconds
6% Life stolen per hit
Knockback
150% Damage to Undead
+2 to Combat Skills (Barbarian Only)
Socketed (2: 2 used)

I stashed my poison charm to get the full 6 seconds.
Now I didn´t have the 'Weird' help from my main Scimitar or the Iron help from the Charm. Attack Rating with Blade Fury: 647.
Well, I am way above Stormtree´s level so it should still be OK...


Sure enough, this was much better! The occasional Knockback (it´s less effective against monsters this big) really helped, and the double poison
duration was great. Woot!!


Destroyer Mavi the Phoenix Strike Assassin and Rhadge the Cold Iron Wolf, level 61, NM Lower Kurast next

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

Congrats! And thanks for writing it up... I really enjoy reading about challenges like that. It's practically a different game than most of us are playing on a day to day basis. While I also love reading about characters at the top end of the optimization curve, there's something gratifying about seeing flawless emeralds and nefs put to good use

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

Agreed! Excellent use of limited resources.

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

There's nothing more interesting to read than jiansonz taking down a nasty boss. Makes me feel guilty for all the tough ones I've skipped, but I'm learning some new techniques!

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

Temple success!

There were only two tough starts in the six temples:

One in the 'other' Bazaar temple, where an FE something Flesh Hunter pack and some Wailing Beasts were packed in the small starting room. Mind Blast saved my butt there, occupying the boss and some Beasts so I could Dragon Flight to the edge of the pack. Two rogues still blocked the eastern doorway, so I kicked them back with DTail and ran through. Then I opened a TP and waited for the boss to follow into this room. When I entered from stairs again, I went the other way immediately, and only the beasts and one rogue minion followed.

Forgotten Temple had an early Multishot CE archer pack that caused three deaths for Rhadge and plenty of scares for me.


For Sarina´s pack, I was a bit lucky in that I met only two minions at first. Rhadge froze them and I could take them down. Now that I knew where the pack was, I braced myself and dashed out to awaken most of the pack, then quickly dashed all the way out of the temple. Upon entering, I got them perfectly bottlenecked in the doorway. A minion frozen there, and Mavi began to rain down the Meteors as much as she could. Sarina was nearly dead when she finally made it into the doorway.

Here is her drop. At first, I was excited about an exceptional unique, but I soon found out that it was nothing special for this character. The range is no better than my Scimitar (still 1...) and my to-hit chance would plummet, especially with Attack. The cold resist is nice, but the cold damage is nothing compared to what Rhadge is dealing.

The boots had only +8 DEX. My current boots already have SU status (for two reasons) so I can still wear them. Also, Mavi needs a little more strength to wear Greaves. These Greaves is a great candidate for crafting, though. They have guaranteed fire resist, something I really need. Some bats in the Sewers gave me two jewels, so that crafting supply is not missing anymore (although one of the jewels gives 24% lightning resist, which means I may want to use it in a socket instead). Now I wish I had used a Tal rune instead of the flawless emerald in that Stormtree weapon earlier. I hold out hope for a big green gem from the Hellforge.

Riftwing dropped a Static Razor Bow of Amplify Damage and a Toxic Short Spear. Nothing useful, but at least it´s better that my bounty Superuniques drop weapons (those slots are already 'SU and wild card items only') rather than something crappy for an armor slot. A bad belt would really suck, since that is one of the few slots where I have a decent item...

There are no bounty Superuniques before Hell Countess now, so Mavi´s current gear is at least secured until then.

I have no idea how I will tackle Mephisto. Fight will either be very scary or veeery long and boring.


Destroyer Mavi the Phoenix Strike Assassin and Rhadge the Cold Iron Wolf, level 63, NM Travincal next

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

Has it really been 8 months since I last played Mavi? Seriously...


I was a little rusty in early Travincal, but quickly found my ways. After all, this is my favourite build. I even managed to kill a Champ pack of Heirophants (I had to kick one at a time away from the pack so they wouldn´t just keep healing each other) that were in a tricky spot - that platform just NW of the Compelling Orb building.

Durance of Hate was quite easy. This is NM, so dolls can be frozen, which makes it easy to avoid they death explosions. When the enemies were not enough, the game decided to try some psychological terror instead.
(I just couldn´t bring myself to just leave that rune, so I stashed it and muled it off. I even made an ATMA stash where I put all my 1.09-1.11 runes Hel and higher that I could find on retired characters and ATMA stashes no longer in use. This includes Mal, Gul and the Vex my amazon in a pass-it-on tourney found in an urn in the desert. Maybe I´ll do some twinking some day. Any ideas?)

Mephisto was quite scary, since I tried to fight him without spending purples. This may be a big problem later: I spend so much energy fighting my drinking reflex that I am afraid I won´t drink a purple when I really need to.

Act IV was good for Mavi. Not as much luck with bountymob draws that I could´ve had, but there were spawners on Outer Steppes and on River of Flame, plus bats in the City.

Hephasto was Fanaticism Cold Enchanted, which is why I fought him like this. Meleeing while being chilled against a fast- and hard hitting maniac would not have ended well, especially not since the rejuve supply is so feeble. Took over 20 minutes to kill Hephasto.


And now for my amazing Hellforge drop: Shael.

Woohoo!!!

Cubed Nef x3 and made my 2s Bone Shield I had on switch into a Rhyme shield. Since one of the Nef runes was from Countess (in Normal), that means that the Eth rune and subsequently the Rhyme shield now has SU status. So I can use it for the rest of the game!

The CBF and boosted fire/cold resists meant I was not scared of the Diablo fight any more. Here are my stats before the fight. Blocking is at 52%.

Got into the close-up position where the Lightning Inferno does not hit. I didn´t even need a town break - just seven greater healers and a mana potion.

Rejuve supply is now 4 full purples and 2 small purples. I also have a couple of gems so I can cube a couple more purples if I need to.


I now need to improve my resists for Hell. Still haven´t found any resist charm whatsoever. My charms really are junk. It´s only my Grand Charm with AR bonus and poison damage that is decent. Otherwise it´s 3-7 fire damage, +9 mana and such crap.

My best chance is probably my Amulet of Greed. It´s the only amulet I can wear atm since it´s dropped by a superunique bounty monster. I can craft it if I complete Qual-Kehk´s quest (I need the Ral). If I find another Nef, I may decide to craft my Strong Heavy Gloves of Fortune instead. I can not do both unless I find another jewel...


Destroyer Mavi the Phoenix Strike Assassin and Rhadge the Cold Iron Wolf, level 67, NM Frigid Highlands next

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

Wow, amazing - you're still at that! Also, impressive progress! I bet the Hephasto fight took you some time... did you use the flail again? Good luck for Act 5 and the rest of Hell!