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

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

did you use the flail again?

No, I used my rare Morning Star with 1-233 lightning damage (the main BF weapon, dropped by Baal). When it was a good situation like in the screenie, the 3 seconds poison duration from my charm was usually good enough to keep him green.

Also, I am not totally sure, but it seems like at bit into the fight, Hephasto stopped regenerating altogether. There were a couple of (scary) occasions where Hephasto wandered off too far towards the Chaos Sanctuary and I had to go "fetch" him again and dash out through the portal. When I picked up the damage dealing, I hadn´t lost any progress.

This is strange, because in the early parts of the fight, he did regenerate quite fast when I couldn´t keep up the poisoning.

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

No, I used my rare Morning Star with 1-233 lightning damage (the main BF weapon, dropped by Baal). When it was a good situation like in the screenie, the 3 seconds poison duration from my charm was usually good enough to keep him green.

Also, I am not totally sure, but it seems like at bit into the fight, Hephasto stopped regenerating altogether. There were a couple of (scary) occasions where Hephasto wandered off too far towards the Chaos Sanctuary and I had to go "fetch" him again and dash out through the portal. When I picked up the damage dealing, I hadn´t lost any progress.

This is strange, because in the early parts of the fight, he did regenerate quite fast when I couldn´t keep up the poisoning.

Strange - I had this happen to me sometimes, too, but couldn't put a finger on it either as to why they stopped regenerating...

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

Nothing remarkable in the first outdoor areas in Act V. Annoying porcupines and crows on the Foothills - took a LOT of healing potions to get through safely.

Two Gem Shrines today. Nice! Now my in-game stash looks like this.

With the Ral from Qual-Kehk, I did go for that amulet crafting I mentioned. Here is the result:

Grim Wing
Amulet
Required Level: 46
Item Version: 1.10 Expansion
Item Level: 39
Fingerprint: 0xe8e53a11
+41 to Life
+17 to Mana
Regenerate Mana 9%
Magic Damage Reduced by 1
+1 to Paladin Skill Levels
9% Faster Cast Rate

Clearly better than a silly Amulet of Greed, but where are my damn resists?!!


I went through Mavi´s ATMA stash today. Turns out I have been thinking ahead, and I seem to have saved everything that has even the slightest chance of becoming useful. Here are the best stuff:

* Imbuable boots and gloves. Boots need to be personalized to allow use, but that can be arranged...

* Exploding potion. Obviously meant for cubing a Garnet ring. May very well happen, since I have all the supplies and no more Ral runes to put in sockets, so I will probably need the fire resistance. There is still an open socket in my circlet, and I have two Ort runes, so lightning resist is better covered (see also the next item).

* I do have one more jewel, but it´s a 24% Ambergris jewel, so I am not too keen on using it for a chancy crafting attempt. Gloams are good at dropping jewels. Let´s hope I get to fight some in this act.

* Greaves of Skill that NM Sarina dropped. Crafting these will improve my boots, no matter how bad the result (because the recipe has guaranteed fire resist). The current Chain Boots only have MF and ctc Frost Nova.

* Mavi´s Blade Talons with 2 sockets. Looks like I was hoping for an Amn rune. I still am. Hell Countess, maybe?

* Spetum of Vileness. Takes up annoyingly lot of space in the stash, but may be crucial later (I picture myself getting one hit in with BF using this spear...) if I want to keep up my perfect full clear status.


Eventually, I need to decide what to socket. The two most likely candidates are my Tangerine Ring Mail and my Weird Scimitar of Gore. The armor is currently the only armor I must use, and it would be nice to have 1-2 sockets in it to vastly improve its resists. The scimitar (my main weapon, which, believe it or not, is better for Mavi than the Coldkill unique Hatchet that I have in stash!). The range 1 is indeed annoying, but having a freezing merc often gives me time to micro-adjust my movements so I can hit. The good parts about the scimitar are the base speed and the big AR bonus. The AR bonus is especially important for my Attack hits that I release charges with. Phoenix Strike hits reasonably well anyway. If I socket my scimitar I can put the Ambergris jewel there (resists on weapons is good), or maybe a big amethyst for an even bigger AR bonus. If I luck out and get 2 sockets, I could do both.

Decisions, decisions...


Destroyer Mavi the Phoenix Strike Assassin and Rhadge the Cold Iron Wolf, level 69, NM Crystalline Passage next

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

Man, I really like how you can take a harsh tourney rule set and run away with it, jiansonz. As always, the readup is entertaining. And does this make my tourney the longest running tourney that still receives the occasional update? Not sure, just asking

Anyways, rock on. I already know you are epic, it would be nice if you could add a Guardian of this terror of a tourney in your diablo 2 showcase as well

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

And does this make my tourney the longest running tourney that still receives the occasional update? Not sure, just asking

No, I guess that would be Wolron's Obsession tourney *shameless self-promotion*
Granted, I haven't updated for 4 months, but I still have 3 characters on their way to Guardian...(hopefully...)

Bountyhunter was so much fun though! In fact, I am tempted to give it another try...but as it is, I currently have enough other projects (3 obsession chars, 1 random tourney guy, one spirit tournament guy, oh, and I discovered I haven't even finished Alkyone from Vang's 2007 random tournament although I did finish another character in his 2009 edition :scratchchin. But you can never have too many projects, right????:whistling:

Also, I can only echo your words about jiansonz: I hope you manage to pull Mavi through!

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

Thought about it and decided to start a new character - I'm yet undecided on a Lightning/Fire Wall sorc and a Bone/Meleemancer...probably the latter. Here are my rolls:

Act 1: Goatmen
Act 2: Baboon Demons
Act 3: Willowisp
Act 4: Oblivion Knight (Lord de Seis)
Act 5: Baal's Minion (Eldritch)

Boss: Andariel

Hmm...some interesting draws: Only two SUs, which means not too many forced items, so more flexibility. On top of that, Andariel is very early in the game so drops might actually be useful for quite some time, esp. the guaranteed gem, which doesn't have to be used immediately as superunique drops but may substitute a superunique item later...:scratchchin:

Goatmen aren't exactly common in Act I, meaning that I probably can use shopped items for quite some time, the same is true for Baboon Demons in Act 2 (where do they appear at all???). Those are more common in Act 3 though, so in Act 3 I'll be likely to have all my item slots full of trophymob items and/or Andariel's items. Willowisps are a PITA, but well, it could have been worse, I guess. Baal's minions in Act 5 are great though: lots of mobs, easy to fight, Eldritch as a boss...

So yeah, introducing Bad_Cologne, the Necromancer, level 1.


Just to make sure: Random bosses (e.g. boss goatman) aren't considered superunique status, only trophymob status, right?

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

The baboon demons appear for the first time (and only time in Act II, I think) in the palace levels.

Yeah, all mobs of your rolled monstertype, save superunique heroes, are trophymobs.

Good luck, Grisu!

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

Also, couldn't find a clear ruling on buying Tomes - are we allowed to? Are we allowed to pick up tomes from those archives? The only bit about it I found was this:

* Can we
- shop potions for some cube recipes (resist rings and rejuves)?
- shop TP Tome/Scroll for the unsocket recipe and to create the cow portal?
I assume we can, since we are allowed to shop these items that are not equipped.

You can shop and use all items that you are allowed to sell from all drops as well, yes. (which means, to clarify, red/blue/black/yellow/white potions, scroll of TP and identify. Keys may be shopped, but are rather useless, since chestdrops cannot be used.) So you can shop potions etc for recipes, provided the other ingredients did drop from trophymobs. And that last one kinda rules out the cowlvl, huh? But heck, if you want to antagonize yourself by not being able to use potentially useful drops, be my guest.

And I'm not sure if this means we're allowed to buy them/pick them up or not...blame it on my language skills
EDIT: Also, are we allowed to place Scrolls of TP in our belt slots?

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

In my understanding (and how I play) is that we are allowed to buy tomes, arrows, bolts and keys, but we can not pick them up from non-bounty monsters or from containers.

Intersting rolls you got.

Andariel looks good for the early wildcard items, plus she drops 3 guaranteed gems you can use to make socketed items into wildcard items as well.

Goats are not common - you get a few in Stony Field, Barracks and Jail, plus many in Arcane Sanctuary.

Baboon demons are rare. Yeah, Palace (all four levels), Spider Forest, LK, Causeway.

Gloams are also rare. Great Marsh, Swampy Pit and Plains of Despair.

All these three can be guests in Act V NM/Hell, but are not common. But you can get goats on at least one of the huge outdoor areas, I think.


Oblivion Knigts are very rare. Just the CS and a few guest areas in Act V (two RoF bonus areas, WSK 3 and throne level, I think).


Boars in Act V is an excellent roll. Normal is crawling with them, and the ones in WSK 2 can drop some decent stuff since they´re level 40 or something like that.

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

Hmm... Good question. IIRC, the general attitude for tourneys on TP scrolls in a belt was somewhat ambivalent, right? I'm not too keen on the idea, but I'm not exactly opposed to it... I sort of wonder what Jiansonz take on it is.

Heh. It seems like jiansonz said it all, regarding your rolls Good luck!
btw. Jiansonz forgot to mentino the Countess tower. You're bound to run in a few goats there. I think there's another are where they can appear outdoors... The black marsh? The tamoë highlands? Hmm.

I think the lack of superuniques will start to chafe though, come hell you'll only have 4 dropped SU items... I hope Andariel drops some good wildcards for you!

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

Hmm... Good question. IIRC, the general attitude for tourneys on TP scrolls in a belt was somewhat ambivalent, right? I'm not too keen on the idea, but I'm not exactly opposed to it... I sort of wonder what Jiansonz take on it is.

I think it´s up to the player.

Jiansonz forgot to mentino the Countess tower. You're bound to run in a few goats there. I think there's another are where they can appear outdoors... The black marsh? The tamoë highlands? Hmm.

Oh yeah, the Blood Clan in the Tower. Of course.
Maybe both Stony Field and Black Marsh, then?

And one more thing: I just realized that Doom Knights and Abyss Knights are included in the Oblivion Knight category, so that´s a much better roll than I thought. Many guaranteed in the CS, and a potential enemy in every Act IV area.

I think the lack of superuniques will start to chafe though, come hell you'll only have 4 dropped SU items...

There are 2 superuniques per difficulty, so it´s 4 SU items per difficulty.

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

Well, Bad_cologne made it to the desert.

So far, everything went quite well, although I hadn't much equipment due to trophymob scarceness: Until I arrived in the Jail, I only faced 2 Moon Clan Champions, 7 Normal Night Clans and 15 Normal Blood Clans. In the Jail though, there were 3 boss packs of Death Clans (each 5 minions) and 39 more Death Clans. So I got at least some items (3 rejuvs, cracked Scimitar and the like).

I usually don't like [url="http://imageshack.us/f/338/screenshot055x.jpg/" ]these kind of boss drops [/url](from Blood Raven in this case), but in my case it was probably the best, because I couldn't have used any item dropped by Blood Raven, but could well use the money

Andariel's drop> was actually quite useful: I used the chipped Topaz to socket a 2 os Skull Cap bought from Charsi (I haven't found any headgear from my trophymob), equipped the Belt and one of the Rare Bows and gave the Voulge to a Prayer Merc from Act II.

btw: A shame to let the Countess' drop go to waste...

My current equipment: Gemmed Skull Cap (Chipped Topaz from Andariel, Skull Cap bought from Charsi)
Hard Leather Armor (some random Goaty
Small Shield of the Fox (+7 Life, Goaty boss)
Mace (some random Goaty)
Leather Gloves (Random goaty)
Heavy Boots (random goaty)
Hasaru's Iron Stay (Andariel drop)
Ring of Charged Bolt (random Goaty)
Bronze Amulet (+13 AR, random Goaty)
Large Charm (+4% LR, random Goaty)

Weapon switch: Demon Horn Long Bow (3-12 dmg (+23%), +1 Cold dmg, +20 AR, 1-5 Fire Dmg, +2 DEX, Andariel drop)

Merc: Strong Studded Leather (from Death Clan boss), Voulge of Worth (+2 max dmg, Andariel drop)

Oh, and this was probably the first character with whom I picked up each and every small potion to sell it, and now my impressive fortune is 50,186!!!

Bad_Cologne, the Bonemancer and Kasim, the Prayer merc, level 20, Normal Desert next

EDIT: Sorry for messy post - it's now fixed, but I had to reformat the post - SPF is behaving funny today: It only shows without formatting for me (white background and similar oddities...)

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

On went the journey through the desert: Only gold and potion grabbing for the first half of the Act, (ab)using all available curses. So far, the curses mostly used are AD, Dim Vision for Greater Mummies and Life Tap...especially the last one proved to be very useful, because I don't have the amount of money to resurrect my merc every 10 seconds...honestly, Life Tap is just sick. The only time my merc died was when I didn't pay attention to the poison status after a fight against some poisonous boss...Even Duriel himself was a joke with Life Tap. Needed probably 2 Health potions and 8 Mana Potions (took him down with Bone Spear mainly).

I had a lucky unique drop from one random Hell Clan (of 250 total) in the sanctuary: The Centurion. Granted, the pink colour looks ridiculous, but I don't care if the mods are fine (ok, Greyform, Blinkbat's and Twitchthroe would all have been better, but I won't complain).

This drop from a non-trophymob though made me curse...had 28% MF even...ah well, sometimes you get to be the dog, sometimes the tree...(actually, I don't think there is a saying like this in English, but I think it's fun to translate random sayings into other languages ... sue me )

Now to the fun parts - equipment:
Gemmed Skull Cap (Chipped Topaz from Andariel, Skull Cap bought from Charsi)
The Centurion (some random Goaty in Arcane Sanctuary)
Small Shield of the Fox (+7 Life, Goaty boss)
Mace (some random Goaty)
Leather Gloves (Random goaty)
Heavy Boots (random goaty)
Hasaru's Iron Stay (Andariel drop)
Ring of Charged Bolt (random Goaty)
Amulet of Chance (6% MF, random Goaty in Arcane Sanctuary)
Large Charm (+4% LR, random Goaty)
Grand Charm (Res Fire +19%, +8 Life, from random goaty in Arcane Sanctuary)
Large Charm (+13 Life, +4 Mana, random goaty in Arcane Sanctuary)

Weapon switch: Demon Horn Long Bow (3-12 dmg (+23%), +1 Cold dmg, +20 AR, 1-5 Fire Dmg, +2 DEX, Andariel drop)

Merc: Scale Mail of Balance (from Dune Beast), 1 os Spetum (from random goaty Arcane Sanctuary), 1 os Full Helm (from random goaty Arcane Sanctuary)

Gold accumulated: 195,048 (plus a lot of regular items saved so far if needed later...but mostly it's going to be charsi'd, I predict

oh, and there were 10 total Dune Beasts in the Harem levels, plus one Champion and one Fanatic...hope there'll be more in Act III!

Bad_Cologne, the Bonemancer and Kasim, the Prayer merc, level 28, Normal Jungle next

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

edit: nvm wrong thread.

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

"Mavi, welcome to the ice caves!"

Oh dear. I had no idea how to possibly defeat this beast. This is v1.11, with more than a little trace of the FE bug remaining. Also, even a regular Champion Moon Lord is very bad news for Mavi. Mavi had several scary moments against the ones guarding the Frozen River entrance.

I could have used Fade to cushion most of the elemental damage, but then I´d be in deep trouble if I had to flee, because without BoS, this boss would be faster than Mavi when frenzied. I thought about using other monsters and Mind Blast to get a temporary tank, but I thought that would still be too dangerous.

Then I figured it out: put up a TP a bit away from the WP, use BF with my Flail with the long-lasting poison, and let Rhadge slowly wear him down. I used a combo of the Knockback, Mind Blast and fleeing out through one of the two exits to keep us alive. Worst enemy this far, finally overcome.

Drifter Cavern wasn´t so bad, because there you can do this. Took forever to grind down Bile Hawk from here...


Got a very lucky second Ancients roll (first time, Madawc was Cursed and Rhadge dead in 3 seconds...TP up!) and also managed to lose Talic by running a bit. Korlic had Teleportation and Madawc had Stone Skin. Messy fight against this duo, since they both had Knockback and Madawc's axe shots hurt. After they were defeated, we found the Magic Resistant Talic (immune to fire). His weapon wasn´t too damaging, so he wasn´t so scary.

Some bountymobs in the WSK: bats on one level, and gloams and Death Lords (CBF Frenzytaurs, but thankfully, no boss!) on the Throne level. WSK level 2 had a shrine that was extremely useful here (and being this close nullified the Multishot ability).

Baal dropped this. All the weapons are complete crap. I was excited about the gloves, but they were very underwhelming (see below).

With almost no XP to be had in the cow level, I cleared it on players 3.



Best finds in Act V were Tal + Eth runes, both from regular Night Lords in Halls of Valor. This meant I had four Tal runes, so I could cube myself a Ral rune (which I put in my helm) and still have a Tal so I could make a decent armor for Rhadge.

I cubed two resist rings. Minimum result on both rolls (21%, and no suffix).

Then I took the Scimitar to Larzuk, and got the minimum roll there, too. Figures...




Mavi almost got killed against this nasty bugger. We finally got him down shortly after the screenie. Rhadge bravely took the shots for us. He didn´t die a second time, but it was close.

Corpsefire wasn´t kind either. He killed Rhadge. I hired some temporary help to get some serious flames going. He is a 'narrow' monster with high resists, so it takes lots of flames to severely damage him. I manage to get a triple volley down during this Mind Blast time, and then I used more MB to keep him there until the flames died down. Then he was at ~10% life. BF with my lightning Morning Star took down the rest.

Onwards! (hoping for many corrupted rogues now)


Skills
Phoenix Strike 20
Fists of Fire 19
Claws of Thunder 20
Blades of Ice 1
All kicking skills and MA prereqs 1

Blade Fury 1

Burst of Speed 1
Fade 6
Venom 1 (regretting this point now, but it did help tremendously vs. Normal Diablo)
Cloak of Shadows 1
Mind Blast 1

Stats:
STR 59+3
DEX 131 (gives 50% blocking)
VIT 250
ENE 25
Life 994
Mana 168

AR with Phoenix Strike: 2817
AR with Attack: 1136
(I think Defense is ignored when hitting frozen monsters. It looks like Mavi almost never misses them...)

Resists (with Burst of Speed): Fire 26, Cold -55, Lightning 19, Poison -48
Resists (with Fade): Fire 71, Cold -10 (40 with potion help), Lightning 64, Poison -3 (47 with potion help)


Primary Gear:
* Rare Circlet 'RalRal': Defense 47, Adds 16-49 fire damage, MDR by 2
* Crafted Amulet: +41 life, +17 mana, 9% faster cast, MDR by 1, Regenerate mana +9% (SU status)
* Weird Scimitar of Gore, reward-socketed with a 24% Ambergris Jewel (Wildcard status)
* Tangerine (5%) Ring Mail (SU status)
* 'Rhyme' Bone Shield (SU status)
* Rare Bramble Mitts: 59 Defense, +20 AR, 7% Poison resist, 3% life steal, Lvl 3 Cold Arrow (9/27 charges), +1 Amazon P&M skills, self-repair
* Garnet (21%) Ring
* Rare Plated Belt: +1 STR, +15 life, 24% Lightning resist, 17% FHR
* Coral (21%) Ring
* Crafted Chain Boots: 5% ctc lvl 4 Frost Nova, +24% MF, and some even more useless mods...(SU status)

Switch:
* Rare Morning Star: 1-233 lightning damage, +149 AR, 9% Fire resist (Wildcard status)
* Rare Gothic Shield 'Ort', 61% block, minor other resists (Wildcard status)

Charms: (laughable collection!)
* Iron (62) Grand Charm of Blight
* Large Charm of Frost
* Large Charm of Strength (2)
* Lizard's (6) Small Charm
* Snake's (9) Small Charm
* Smoldering (3-7 fire damage) Small Charm
* Small Charm of Life (10)

Rhadge the Cold Iron Wolf:
* Rare Skull Cap: 10% Cold resist, 9% Lightning resist, 10% FHR, +3 life
* Ethereal rare Scimitar (useless for him; SU status)
* 'Stealth' Chain Mail
* Rare Bone Shield with 35% Cold resist, 16% Fire/Lightning/Poison resists, DR by 1, half freeze

MF items in in-game stash:
* Strong Heavy Gloves of Fortune (22)
* Gemmed Helm (2x flawless topaz)
* Ring of Fortune (22)


Conqueror Mavi the Phoenix Strike Assassin and Rhadge the Cold Iron Wolf, level 75, Hell Cold Plains next

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

After my randomly-challenged necro dies I'm gonna have to try a char in this tourney. Looks fun!

Edit: Screw it, I will work on both characters simultaneously :crazyeyes:

First roll was terrible

Fetish
Wraith
Corrupted Rogue
Fingermages
Blood Lords

Andariel

The Reroll

Fallen (Rakanishu)
Wendigo
Thorned Hulks (Stormtree)
Sand Maggot
Death Maulers (Eyeback)

Mephisto

Meh. Trophymobs will be more common with this roll atleast, except in act II and IV. Not many superuniques. Could be a good thing though since there will only be three times per difficulty that I am potentially forced to use crappier gear than the crap I already have equipped. I guess Death Maulers and Meph are the highlight.

I'm going to start things off with a dual nova sorc. Not even sure if that build is guardian viable untwinked, but I suppose if naked passive zons can get to guardian I should be able to do it with this gal.

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

Introducing Avia, the dual Nova bountyhunting sorc.

She has just cleared the cold plains and will take on the burial grounds the cave, stoney field, and perhaps the ugp my next session.

Skill distribution thus far:

1 Warmth
1 Telekenesis
1 Static Field
1 Frozen Armor
3 Frost Nova
1 Saved

I am already seeing the difficulties present with this ruleset. Not twenty paces into the blood moor was a gem shrine which a zombie dropped a chipped topaz right next to. Not twenty paces after the first gem shrine was another, directly next to which a quill rat dropped a chipped topaz. Good grief. Why can't I get this kind of early topaz luck on non-restricted characters? I now have a normal quality Ruby though :crazyeyes:

The other difficulty lies with mob separation. There was a few times when I couldn't justify picking up a staffmod item or piece of jewelry because frost nova killed a shaman or rogue in the middle of a pack of fallen :doh:

Because of item restriction it may behoove me to pump energy a little bit even though it is normally useless. This is since I am assuming this build is entirely useless without the ability to spam a FN followed by 8-10 Novas. Thoughts?

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

Welcome to the tournament!

I think there's something not quite right with your rolls: You've got two Act I trophymobs (Fallens and Wendigo), but no Act IV trophymob?

Some thoughts on your char and rolls:

Fallens are pretty good to collect gems early. In the case you mentioned with the two early gem shrines I usually only pause the game between gaming sessions and put the PC in hybernation instead of shutting it down and make a note as to where to find the gem shrines, so that I can continue the game later on and use the shrines once I find a topaz (or - if the gem shrines are later in the Act - wait for Andariel and pray she drops a normal topaz to upgrade it with the saved gem shrine. of course, with Mephisto as you Trophy boss, that won't help you )
Fallens can also appear as guest monsters in Act V in NM and Hell, which is good, too.

Sand Maggots are a lot in Act II and some in the River of Flame, so they should provide you with some items, too.

Thorned Hulks are neither rare nor as common as Flayers in Act III, but I think it's an ok draw.

Death Maulers are very common in Act 5 - Bloody Foothills, Passages, Nihlataks Temple...

Dual Nova sorc untwinked is tough IMHO. They are very gear dependant (+skills (esp. Frost Nova damage is pretty underwhelming without +skills), mana either through Insight or MPK or something similar, FCR) and you need to get close to your opponents, so they tend to be fragile. Also, separating mobs is tough as you mentioned. Well, sorcs in general aren't very good in crowd control

Problem might be, that you never actually get enough FCR to be safe, especially against Blood lords and other fast monsters. I suggest a sturdy mercenary, maybe even a Barb one.

For separating mobs, you might consider slowing or freezing single targets from either trophymob or non-trophymob with Ice Blast/Ice Bolt and lure the non-frozen monsters away, that way you can maybe separate them a bit better. Another way would be Telekinesis to stun certain monsters or even telebombing and quick-grabbing the dropped item.

I'd probably have chosen another type of sorc who can stay away from monsters, especially after my death in Hell Act V with my HF Zealot...that's why my thoughts went towards Firewall/Lightning (see above). Of course, it is possible with your build, but I hope you get really lucky with your drops! I'd especially try to get Perfect Amethysts to cube Caster Amulets and Belts!

Good luck!

EDIT @ jiansonz:

"Mavi, welcome to the ice caves!"

yuck!!! Wow, scary encounter! Moon Lords really are hitmen in this kind of tournament...

Drifter Cavern wasn´t so bad, because there you can do this. Took forever to grind down Bile Hawk from here...

you took them down with BF and your merc? :crazyeyes: let me guess: 9 cups of coffee?

Corpsefire wasn´t kind either. He killed Rhadge. I hired some temporary help to get some serious flames going.

lol - mind blasting is hiring for you? Good thing you're no wizard in RL Seriously though, I really marvel at your patience!

Resists (with Burst of Speed): Fire 26, Cold -55, Lightning 19, Poison -48
Resists (with Fade): Fire 71, Cold -10 (40 with potion help), Lightning 64, Poison -3 (47 with potion help)

Nice resists for this kind of tourney with heavy item restrictions!

* Rare Bramble Mitts: 59 Defense, +20 AR, 7% Poison resist, 3% life steal, Lvl 3 Cold Arrow (9/27 charges), +1 Amazon P&M skills, self-repair

out of interest: what's the repair cost? Just wondering because of charges+self-repair...

Good luck for Hell!!!

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

you took them down with BF and your merc? :crazyeyes: let me guess: 9 cups of coffee?

Well, the boss was the second to go down, and that did take forever...
After that, I could do some luring and kill them rather quickly with heavy flames. The minions can be frozen, and CoS helps for getting the others to stay out of melee range (long as it is for these guys).

out of interest: what's the repair cost? Just wondering because of charges+self-repair...

19408 gold for the missing 18 charges.



@Drewgie: welcome and good luck! That´s a hard build for this tourney. Let´s hope you get some good merc gear.

I cannot believe you rerolled that first bountymob roll. I think it´s great, with Andariel, the plentiful fetish and two kinds of wraith class monsters (with 4x the normal drop rate for 'misc good' items), and only 3 SU monsters that can curse you with stuff. But, like your second roll, it´s not correctly made, since both fetishes, wraiths and corrupted rogues are Act I monsters.

 

[Grisu]

Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven

I think I misunderstood the rules and rolling mechanics...

I would have kept the first roll had I known that trophymobs "carryover" from act to act ie: act I roll of Fetish carries over to act III etc. I was thinking that I was going to get all of three items dropped in the catacombs due to that roll.

Also, as far as most of my rolls being act I monsters, my same thinking applied. IE: the original post by the tourney host provided this list:

Spoiler

Act I :
Common : Zombie, Fallen, Skeleton, Spike fiend, Corrupted Rogue.
Uncommon : Fallen Shaman, Corrupted Rogue Archer, Corrupted rogue spearwoman, Skeleton archer, wendigo, goatmen, blood hawk, tainted, wraith
Rare : The rest, meaning : Vampires, Giant Spiders, Fetish, Skeleton mage.
Almost non Existent - Not for this act.

Act II
Common - Sabre Cat, Leaper, Mummy, Skeleton, Scarab Demon, Vulture Demon, Slinger
Uncommon : Sand Maggot, Skeleton Archer, Skeleton MAge, Blunderbore, Bat Demon, Greater Mummy, Sand Raiders.
Rare - Zombies, Vampires, Claw Vipers, Swarms, Wendigo, Goat men, Wraith, Blood Hawk, Baboon Demon.
Almost non-existent - None.

Act III
Common - Fetish, Zakarum Zealots, Thorned Hulks.
Uncommon - Fetish Shaman, Bone Fetish, Baboon Demon, Zakarum Priests, Giant spider, Giant mosquito, Bat demon, Vampire, Vulture demon.
Rare - Zombie, Sand Raider, Mummy, Greater Mummy, Skeleton, Blunderbore, Corrupted Rogue, Corrupted rogue archer, Willowisps, Frog Demon, Leaper, Scarab Demon, Sand Maggot, Wendigo, Blood hawk, wraith
Almost Non-existent - Council Members.

Act IV
Common - Oblivion Knights.
Uncommon - Willowisps, Regurigitators, MegaDemons, Fingermages, Vile mothers.
Rare - Tainted, Bat demon, Sand maggot, Blunderbore.
Almost non-Existent - None

Act V
Common - Demon Imp, Baals Minion(includes Suicide minions), Death Maulers, Frozen Horrors, Stygian Furies, Succubi.
Uncommon - Blood lords, abominable, overseer, Reanimated Horde, Putrid Defiler
Rare - Catapult, Siege Beasts, Guest mobs.
Almost non-existent : Minion of Destruction.

Wendigo, for example, are listed in both acts I and III. Since I rolled them for my act III roll I assumed that I was only allowed to collect their bounty in that act. Same with Sand Maggots in act IV, Wraiths in act II, etc.

Back to the drawing board I guess, and this time I will hopefully be within the tourney rules with my rolls.