[2014] The CtC Tournament for HC and SC players (untwinked, single pass) [by HC Gunther]

HC Gunther said:
I guess I screwed up. Originally, it was going to be that you could equip anything until you found a CtC weapon and then someone suggested changing it to be white or blue and that is what I put, but I didn't change what I planned to have the rogue equip. I will change it to white, grey or blue. I think it should be as easy as possible to get through the early parts of the game.
Ahh, I was wondering if I had missed something. I actually like the white/blue only rule as it makes me think about how to do things a bit differently (if somewhat more challengingly), I think I will keep playing it anyway.
 
Charsi's little known sister, Chansi, has picked up her bow and headed out into the world with a fetish for randomness. She has defeated Duriel without too many problems. Paige the Ice Rogue kept her company until the Summoner was defeated, after that Razan the Act 2 Combat merc joined the fun. 9 pts in Magic Arrow gives an effectively free main attack using a rare amp damage composite bow. 1 pt in Jab with an amp damage Spetum is for backup. 6 pts in Crit Strike, 5 in Decoy and 1 in Slow Missile are the main utility skills so far. Decided not to put points in D/A/E for now, but will slowly build up Strafe.


Razan uses a Steelgoad (one of only two Normal S/U weapons with ctc mods, the other is Ume's Lament) which dropped in the Arcane Sanctuary - a second Steelgoad dropped in the Canyon of the Magi. The Hit Causes Monster's to Flee mod actually works well to keep the pressure of Razan … so far.


Fire Eye dropped this rather nice ring:
Code:
Viper Master
Ring
Required Level: 13
Fingerprint: 0x78606a29
Item Level: 21
Version: Expansion 1.10+
12% Chance to cast level 4 Charged Bolt when struck
+54 to Attack Rating
+5 to Energy
+18 Maximum Stamina
Cold Resist +21%
6% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items


While this is my favorite charm:
Code:
Shimmering Grand Charm
Grand Charm
Required Level: 10
Fingerprint: 0x80299f37
Item Level: 18
Version: Expansion 1.10+
All Resistances +8


Code:
Name          Character    Class       HC? Diff.   Area               Level  M/R/S/U/C/RW
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
grk           Shaetemmu    Necromancer SC  NM      Jail level 1          51  5/2/0/0/0/0
dhaos         TheAnimal    Druid       HC  NM      Rogue camp            47  5/3/0/0/0/0
jdkerr        Acephal      Amazon      HC  NM      Rogue Camp            46  2/4/0/0/1/2
Dezrok        Chansi       Amazon      HC  Normal  Kurast Docks          28  3/3/0/1/0/0
HC Gunther    Zounds       Paladin     SC  Normal  Lut Gholein           21  5/0/0/0/0/0
Kitteh        Olypuirs     Assassin    HC  Normal  Dark Wood             15  6/1/0/0/0/0
Dazliare      Athena       Amazon      HC  Normal  Cold Plains            6  0/0/0/0/0/0
Grisu         Flashy       Barbarian   HC  Normal  Rogue Camp             1  0/0/0/0/0/0
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RIP:
dfp           Chantix      Sorceress   HC  Normal  Rogue Camp            19  2/3/0/0/0/0

All Quests must be completed before you go to the next difficulty. If you don't complete a quest, it is lost.

Does this mean that I must use the imbue, personalize and socket quest rewards before going on to the next difficulty level or else lose them? No saving them up for those elite items I find in Hell?
 
Dezrok said:
Charsi's little known sister, Chansi, has picked up her bow and headed out into the world with a fetish for randomness.
Like the name

Dezrok said:
Does this mean that I must use the imbue, personalize and socket quest rewards before going on to the next difficulty level or else lose them? No saving them up for those elite items I find in Hell?
You can't save them.
 
I was trying to work out how to get my merc some life leech in this tourney and realised that it is actually going to be a bit tricky. Below are all the options I could come up with. As I would prefer not to have to use a personalise or Larzuk quest reward on the merc then the options become rather limited for end-game gear and quite dependent upon luck.

(And yes, I am probably over-thinking things here.)




Gear in the ctc Tourney

The Merc - Sources of Life Leech


Armor


  • ctc mods on Magic/Rare armors are all suffixes
  • you cannot socket anything into armor that will provide life leech


Head

  • Andariel's Visage is the only Set or Unique item that already has ctc and leech mods (good luck).
  • crafted Blood Helm with ctc mod (guarantees 1-4% leech);
  • personalize or socket quest a Unique or Set item, or a Magic or Rare Circlet, that already has leech;
  • imbue a white Circlet and get the leech mod;
  • the only Magic and Rare's which can spawn with leech are the Circlets;
  • it is not possible to find a Magic Circlet with both ctc and leech mods;
  • find or gamble a Rare Circlet with both ctc and leech mods (about 1:200 rare circlets of alvl 47-57 and 1:174 of alvl 77-99 will have both of these).




Body

  • No Set or Unique Body Armor has both ctc and leech mods already.
  • crafted Blood Armor with ctc mod (guarantees 1-3% leech);
  • personalize or socket quest Greyform, Boneflesh or Skin of the Flayed One (that already has leech);
  • no Set items have leech;
  • Magic and Rare's can't spawn with leech.




Weapons

  • ctc mods on Magic/Rare weapons can come from the "Hit causes monster to flee" prefix, the "ctc Amplify Damage" suffix, or one of the other rather useless "ctc spell effect" suffixes
  • all Magic and Rare weapons can spawn with the leech mod (which is always a suffix) from ilvl=6
  • an Amn rune socketed into a weapon will provide the leech mod


All Weapons

  • socket quest and place an Amn rune into any weapon;
  • personalize or socket quest any weapon that already has the leech mod;
  • imbue a white weapon and get the leech mod;
  • shop, gamble or find a Magic or Rare weapon with both ctc and leech mods;
  • shop, gamble or find a Magic or Rare weapon with both ctc mods and open sockets and place an Amn rune in it;
  • reroll a Magic weapon with the 3 chippie gem recipe (or the 3 flawless gem recipe) until you get a ctc mod, then place an Amn rune in one of the sockets;
  • shop. gamble or find a socketed weapon and reroll it with the 3 normal gem recipe until you get a ctc mod, then place an Amn rune in one of the sockets;
  • probably the best you can get with the reroll recipe is a Cruel weapon of Amplify Damage with 2 sockets, for one Amn and one Shael, potentially giving 300% ED, 20% IAS, 7% ll and a 5% ctc Amp Dam on striking - not too shabby (if very, very unlikely).


Act 1 - Bows

  • no Set or Unique bows have both ctc and leech mods already.
  • place an Amn rune into WWS (already has sockets and a ctc mod);
  • personalize or socket quest Riphook (already has leech);
  • the only ctc mods Magic/Rare bows can get are the "flee" prefix or the "Amp Damage" suffix.


Act 2 - Polearms/Spears

  • the only Set or Unique's that already have both ctc and leech mods are Blackleach Blade and Reaper's Toll.
  • place an Amn rune into Tomb Reaver or Bonehew (already have sockets and a ctc mod);
  • personalize Hone Sundan and place an Amn rune into a socket;
  • personalize or socket quest The Battlebranch or Meatscraper;
  • craft a Safety Spear with both ctc and leech mods;
  • the only ctc mods Magic/Rare polearms and spears can get are the suffixes.


Act 3 - You don't need to worry about leech with an Act 3 merc, they aren't going to try to hit anything anyway.


Act 5 - Swords

  • The only Set or Unique that already has both ctc and leech mods is Doombringer;
  • in addition the runeword Lawbringer has both ctc and leech mods;
  • personalize Blade of Ali Baba or Djinn Slayer and place an Amn rune into a socket;
  • personalize or socket quest Bloodletter, Blood Crescent, Bloodmoon, Death's Touch, Hellplague, Shadowfang or Soulflay;
  • the only ctc mods Magic/Rare swords can get are the suffixes.


There is a chance I have missed some of the rarest items from the above lists, along with the highest level runewords (eg: BotD). They are so rare that you are unlikely to find them in a single-pass untwinked tourney. If you do find them then congratulations and enjoy.
 
Chansi has defeated Baal, cleared Cows and moved on to the NM Rogue Camp. All pretty straight-forward in Normal, using Magic Arrow the whole way. Still not much mana and no source of mana leech to make Strafe feasible.


Baal was taking a long time on p8, so I decided to personalise some Goblin Toes I had stashed and get some CB going. Huge difference and it wasn't long until he was coughing up a completely useless collection of blues and yellows.


Then it was time to work out what to do with the Imbue and Socket quest rewards before moving on to NM. Chansi had found nothing really worthy, so I spent about 2 million gambling circlets. The last gamble netted me a 6% life leech and +47 life one which Larzuk put a socket in, just one. That should keep my merc happy.


The Imbue also went on a circlet giving a fairly useless assortment of mods including ctc charged bolt, some decentish +fire damage and +27 life, which can go into the stash but is unlikely to get used.


Other than topazed helm and body armor, Chansi is now fully kitted out in ctc gear except for the belt. Looking forward to some upgrades in NM as very little of my gear changed after Act 3 and some highly hoped for S/U drops in late Act 5 (particularly the WSK) didn't eventuate.


Rune drops have been good though, with a swag of everything up to and including Dol.


A couple of pics. THe first is of a Night Lord walking on lava in the Pit of Acheron. Killed him with the bow and was glad he only dropped some gold. The second is from the Baal fight.


All up, so far this tourney has been a lot more fun than I was expecting it to be and I'm looking forward to Chansi moving in to NM and getting access (hopefully) to some more of those elusive Set and Unique ctc items.


Code:
Name          Character    Class       HC? Diff.   Area               Level  M/R/S/U/C/RW
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
grk           Shaetemmu    Necromancer SC  NM      Jail level 1          51  5/2/0/0/0/0
dhaos         TheAnimal    Druid       HC  NM      Rogue camp            47  5/3/0/0/0/0
jdkerr        Acephal      Amazon      HC  NM      Rogue Camp            46  2/4/0/0/1/2
Dezrok        Chansi       Amazon      HC  NM      Rogue Camp            48  4/3/0/0/0/1
HC Gunther    Zounds       Paladin     SC  Normal  Lut Gholein           21  5/0/0/0/0/0
Kitteh        Olypuirs     Assassin    HC  Normal  Dark Wood             15  6/1/0/0/0/0
Dazliare      Athena       Amazon      HC  Normal  Cold Plains            6  0/0/0/0/0/0
Grisu         Flashy       Barbarian   HC  Normal  Rogue Camp             1  0/0/0/0/0/0
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RIP:
dfp           Chantix      Sorceress   HC  Normal  Rogue Camp            19  2/3/0/0/0/0
 
Chansi and Razan have cleared NM Act 1 and defeated Andariel. It was pretty slow going at times with some fairly underpowered weapons. Chansi's Zephyr Composite Bow is really starting to struggle.


Gems have been hard to find/cube. Only three PTopazes so far. A PSapphire just after the Cathedral allowed me to Up Chansi's switch weapon, a rare Spear with amp damage, so that it at least does a bit more damage now. A couple of PAmethysts allowed me to try and socket some Razor and Ashwood bows, but we kept getting 4 and 5 sockets - not the 2 we were after. We finally found a 2os Cedar Bow on level 3 of the Catacombs and it will be turned into a Zephyr for Act 2.


Otherwise, gear improvements were once again minimal. A pair of rare ctc Greaves with 30% lightning res and 17% MF replaced our previous boots and Akara gave Chansi a nice ring with some mana and MF. The boots meant we lost a bit of fire res but over maxed lightning res, so was able to replace a lightning resist GC with an 82 AR one, which made a big difference to our chance to hit. Gambling amulets didn't pay off.


Lots of Uniques dropped, 14 for the Act. Pretty good given our MF started out at 110% and increased to a whopping 122% by the end of the Act. Unfortunately, none of them were ctc items. Some of the better ones included The Impaler, Magefist, Visceratuant, Wizendraw, The Patriarch and Bveritt Keep.


Strafe still isn't happening for me, without mana leech it just can't be kept going long enough to be effective, so we have stuck with Magic Arrow almost the whole time. Strafe is fun when we find a Mana Recharge shrine though.


We have also run out of full rejuvs. I think Chansi has 2 left in her belt and none stashed anywhere. Hopefully we'll find a pile of purples in Act 2 and build that reserve back up a bit. Plenty of hard hitting bosses throughout the Act saw them being used faster than they were found. Lots of Extra Strong and Extra Fast or Might Aura and Cursed. nasty combos.


Lastly, we will be saying goodbye to Razan and replacing him with a Holy Freeze merc, or maybe a Might merc, I'm still not decided. The extra damage from Might is mighty tempting, although HF feels like it should be the smarter choice.


Chansi the Amazon, Lvl 52, NM, Lut Gholein, 8 ctc items equipped
 
Hey Sput, thanks for the reminder, I had forgotten about that recipe. I didn't need it thankfully as I played a bit more defensively and enough purples dropped to keep me happy. I find gems of pretty premium value in these tourneys so wouldn't like to be using them to make full rejuvs unless really desperate.


Meanwhile...
Chansi has cleared NM Act 2 and defeated Duriel. All pretty easy with some good gear upgrades along the way.


Started out with a Might merc. The extra damage was great, however, Fazel did have a liking of dying. So, after clearing the Far Oasis I swapped him in for Haseen the Holy Freeze merc. Haseen died a few times but a lot less than Fazel and having everything slowed down and corpses shattering was just grand.


We also started out with a new, improved Zephyr Cedar Bow. This was a noticeable improvement over the old Composite Bow version.


At the end of the Far Oasis, when we traded in Fazel for Haseen, we also did a bit of crafting. First up was a Hitpower Amulet with 30% fire res, a huge improvement over our +11 mana blue ctc amulet. Then I thought I'd try my luck making a Safety Spear for the merc as I had a few Perfect Emeralds lying about and not much to do with them right away. Took me a long time to shop a blue Yari but once crafted the roll was great, with ctc Amp Damage on the first try! The other stats weren't so great (27%ED, 1-77 lig dam) but they weren't bad either and a huge improvement over the previous rare War Spear. Just having Amp Damage is great and not worth using up more gems to improve upon at this stage.


A Ko rune dropped in the Ancient Tunnels, so now Chansi is just a Fal and a 5os polearm away from making Obedience! That will be very nice.


After clearing out the Palace Cellars Chansi upped her rare Composite Bow with ctc Amp Damage (switch weapon) to a Double Bow. The extra damage put it on par with the Zephyr Cedar Bow and the chance for Amp meant that by the end of the Act this was Chansi's weapon of choice. Strafe and Amp is working a treat and even with Magic Arrow it is not too bad. We also crafted a Blood Belt at this point and got ctc Charged Bolt, +15 AR, +4 str, +14 lig res and +1 light - along with 2% ll, 8% OW and +17 life. Super improvement over the old blue belt and both the ll and OW have been mighty handy. This also meant I could change my amulet for a gambled ctc Rare with 12% res all, 9% cold res, 1-6 cold dam, +3 max dam - a good boost for the resists.


All of those changes allowed me to drop out some of my crappier resist charms and get some extra mana and AR, both of which were becoming much needed. The extra mana allowed me to start using Strafe a lot more, enough to be killing things with it, although still very dependent upon blue pots as we have no mana leech.


Topazes were also more frequent this Act and Chansi now has her full 7 PTopazes while Haseen has but 1 and is looking forward to getting an armour upgrade as soon as the next one appears. His flawed topaz Breast Plate is looking mighty dented after 6 Acts of use. MF is at 203% for Chansi with an extra 66% for merc kills.


Skill points have been going equally into Decoy and Penetrate (levels 16 and 15 at the moment). The really robust Decoy allows me to set up nice stable battlefields, keep the pressure of Haseen and be confident that I'm not going to get mobbed whilst using Strafe. With 0 FHR getting hit is not at all fun.




Code:
Name          Character    Class       HC? Diff.   Area               Level  M/R/S/U/C/RW
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dezrok        Chansi       Amazon      HC  NM      Kurast Docks          60  0/6/0/0/2/1
grk           Shaetemmu    Necromancer SC  NM      Jail level 1          51  5/2/0/0/0/0
dhaos         TheAnimal    Druid       HC  NM      Rogue camp            47  5/3/0/0/0/0
jdkerr        Acephal      Amazon      HC  NM      Rogue Camp            46  2/4/0/0/1/2
HC Gunther    Zounds       Paladin     SC  Normal  Lut Gholein           21  5/0/0/0/0/0
Kitteh        Olypuirs     Assassin    HC  Normal  Dark Wood             15  6/1/0/0/0/0
Dazliare      Athena       Amazon      HC  Normal  Cold Plains            6  0/0/0/0/0/0
Grisu         Flashy       Barbarian   HC  Normal  Rogue Camp             1  0/0/0/0/0/0
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RIP:
dfp           Chantix      Sorceress   HC  Normal  Rogue Camp            19  2/3/0/0/0/0
 
Chansi has defeated Mephisto and moved on to Act 4. All pretty smooth except for a stair trap in the Forgotten Temple - archers, snakes and beetles. With 0 FHR, getting hit was particularly unpleasant for Chansi and after a few tries to clear some space, or to get a path to run through, it was pretty obvious the most likely result of persisting would be a death. I thought of trying a Cold Iron Wolf but Asheara only had lightning and fire for hire and no matter what I did she wouldn't change the availability. I shopped Acts 1-3 in the hope of finding some equipment that might help … a Wailing/Howling staff of Teleport or a Wailing/Howling bow of some sort, but no luck and once again none of the merchants wouldn't change their offered wares. In the end I decided to leave the Forgotten Temple, ending the full clear.


A Fal rune dropped in the Ruined Fane, so I used the cube to socket a Battle Scythe, got 5 sockets on the first try and hey presto, we had Obedience. Haseen had been replaced by Gulzar, another HF merc and he was most happy to get hold of a new polearm, a huge upgrade over the crafted Yari. He also got a shiny new set of Gothic Plate with 2 PTopazes. A third PTopaz has since been added.


A couple of nice charms from the Durance. A Sharp GC of Strength and a Bronze LC of Balance - finally Chansi gets some FHR … not that one frame makes much difference.


Meph was a breeze. The Decoy took his attention and lasted quite a while, while the CB from Obedience cut his life down to a manageable level pretty quickly. He dropped The Ward and Iron Pelt.


Chansi the Bowazon and Gulzar the HF merc, Lvl 64, NM Pandemonium Fortress, 9 ctc items equipped
 
Chansi and Gulzar progressed through Acts 4 and 5 with few problems. Cows however started like this, which soon became this.


Code:
Name          Character    Class       HC? Diff.   Area               Level  M/R/S/U/C/RW
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
grk           Shaetemmu    Necromancer SC  NM      Jail level 1          51  5/2/0/0/0/0
dhaos         TheAnimal    Druid       HC  NM      Rogue camp            47  5/3/0/0/0/0
jdkerr        Acephal      Amazon      HC  NM      Rogue Camp            46  2/4/0/0/1/2
HC Gunther    Zounds       Paladin     SC  Normal  Lut Gholein           21  5/0/0/0/0/0
Kitteh        Olypuirs     Assassin    HC  Normal  Dark Wood             15  6/1/0/0/0/0
Dazliare      Athena       Amazon      HC  Normal  Cold Plains            6  0/0/0/0/0/0
Grisu         Flashy       Barbarian   HC  Normal  Rogue Camp             1  0/0/0/0/0/0
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RIP:
Dezrok        Chansi       Amazon      HC  NM      Cows                  75  0/6/0/0/2/1
dfp           Chantix      Sorceress   HC  Normal  Rogue Camp            19  2/3/0/0/0/0
 
Yeah, I can't imagine a worse start for Cows, especially for a character highly allergic to being hit. The King was in there, extra fast, and I'm pretty sure there was another extra fast boss pack in that final shot cause a lot of the cows were racing around like they were on speed. I made a couple of bad decisions too and in retrospect should have just got out of there and abandoned Cows all together, just not worth the death. Of course I should have worked a bit harder on coming up with a solution for stair traps after finding out how weak we were against them in Act 3 (I was going to personalise or socket a staff of teleport before going on to Hell, but thought I'd see if anything useful dropped in Cows first).

But great tourney idea HC Gunther, I really enjoyed this one. While playing Chansi I kept on thinking how potentially great a sorc that could synergise many of the ctc effects might be. Well at least once some of the higher level rune words become available. I'll think about it some more and maybe be back for another try.
 
Didn't take long for me to try again:

Casti the Sorceress (Charsi and Chansi's cousin) has picked up her Bardiche and headed out into the world. The plan is to make her into an Enchantless melee sorc, but that isn't going to really happen until she makes Obedience (around the middle of NM hopefully) and wont really take off until she can also make Voice of Reason or Crescent Moon. In the meantime she will melee a bit, use a bow a bit and cast spells a bit … probably pretty standard for an untwinked Sorc early on.


Act 1 was a breeze. Charsi gave her a great deal on a Mechanic's Bardiche of Amp Damage fairly early on (it helps being related) and she happily stuck a Jewel of Envy and a chipped Sapphire into it. Whack! 1pt Ice Blast to freeze monsters, 1pt Static to deal with bosses, 1 pt Frozen Armor for defence and the freeze, 1 pt Warmth and the rest into Ice Bolt. Ice Bolt synergises all the offensive cold spells except Frost Nova and allows Casti to keep damage increasing without having to deal with higher mana casting costs. Akara rewarded with a Beryl Ring of the Apprentice, nice to have a guaranteed source of fcr and certainly better than a plain Ring of Charged Bolt. Switch weapon was a Screaming Wand of Dim Vision, shopped from Akara.


Act 2 also easy. 1pt Glacial Spike for freezing, 1pt Teleport and some decent damage dealing with 1pt Blizzard by the middle of the Act (although our mana pool wont let us cast this very much). Ice Bolt is maxed by the end of the Act. Our Rogue is traded for Haseen the Prayer merc and we gamble a ctc Pike for him. A couple of Savage Polearms were made once we had the cube but none had ctc mods and none were worth rerolling with chippies. As Casti never used the Wand of Dim Vision, it was swapped for a rare ctc Composite Bow, although it was so lame it didn't get used either. The wand is in the stash in case of emergencies.


Act 3: Poleaxes become available and we say goodbye to the trusty Bardiche. We then replace the Poleaxe with a rare War Staff (although this maybe was a mistake as War Staff are very slow). By the time we reach LK we can cube some Rals into an Ort and make a Zephyr comp bow. This becomes our main weapon for the rest of the Act. Ormus rewards Casti with a pretty useless ring, however it is better than the plain Ring of Charged Bolt she was wearing and the +7 Energy isn't a complete waste of time. Before taking on Trav we craft a pair of Hitpower Boots, which are worse than the rare boots we already have so they get sold. Haseen goes through a couple of ctc Poleaxes before finishing with a Deadly Poleaxe of Amp Damage. Skill points going equally into Blizzard and Cold Mastery, which hopefully will keep mana costs manageable for a while.


Tactics are to freeze with Glacial Spike then plink away with the Zephyr while Haseen does most of the killing. More Glacial Spike to keep larger groups frozen and to stop monsters running away. Blizzard is saved for larger groups or when things feel like they are taking too long. Every now and again Casti whacks a few monsters with the War Staff, just to keep in practice.


Other gear: Head and Body are flawed topaz armour; Rare Gloves with ctc Charged Bolt and MF; Blue Serpent's Plated Belt of Charged Bolt (for the mana); Rare Boots with ctc Frost Nova, 10% FHR, 5% lig res, 39% fire res and poison length reduced 25%; Tangerine Amulet of Fortune (still haven't had any ctc amulets).


Casti the Sorceress, Lvl 32, Normal Pandemonium Fortress, 6 ctc items equipped
 
Casti and Haseen have cleared Normal difficulty and moved on to the NM Rogue Camp.


The monsters in Act 4 had a noticeable increase in life and the Zephyr composite bow became less and less effective. The only noteworthy drop was a Dragon Ring of Charged Bolt. The +36 to mana was a great boost. Hell forge dropped a Thul and a Perfect Amethyst. Diablo dropped Treads of Cthon.


Act 5 continued to see a shift away from using weapons and towards Blizzard and being a full time caster. When Anya rewarded Casti with this:
Code:
Imp Gyre
Jared's Stone
One Hand Damage: 8 - 18
Durability: 50 of 50
Required Level: 30
Fingerprint: 0x467cac43
Item Level: 42
Version: Expansion 1.10+
5% Chance to cast level 3 Lightning on attack
Adds 11 - 44 Cold Damage Over 2 Secs (50 Frames)
+1 to Blizzard (Sorceress Only)
+1 to Hydra (Sorceress Only)
+1 to Cold Mastery (Sorceress Only)
+20 to Energy
+47 to Mana
we saw it as a sign that Casti should become a full-time Blizzsorc, at least until we get Obedience. The +87 mana, combined with a ctc shield with another +17 mana, plus a couple of +mana charms that dropped, took our mana pool up to about 350. More than enough to Blizzard everything in the rest of Act 5 with only the very occasional need to quaff a potion.


Casti's gloves were upgraded to these:
Code:
Corpse Grip
Leather Gloves
Defense: 3
Durability: 12 of 12
Required Level: 13
Fingerprint: 0xde8166b8
Item Level: 39
Version: Expansion 1.10+
5% Chance to cast level 3 Frost Nova when struck
+17 to Attack Rating
+2 to Strength
+7 Maximum Stamina
Lightning Resist +30%
18% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items


and a Wailing Grim Wand of Lower Resist was shopped from Malah, to help with immunities later on. Haseen went through a few different pointy sticks, all only minor improvements.


Baal was pretty frisky, but Static and then Blizzard made short work of him. Cows were a breeze.


Then it was time for the big decisions … the quest rewards. We had no obvious items to use them on, so first up was the Imbue on a regular Partizan:
Code:
Viper Bar
Partizan
Two Hand Damage: 44 - 99
Durability: 57 of 65
Required Level: 23
Required Strength: 113
Required Dexterity: 67
Fingerprint: 0x7cba5893
Item Level: 52
Version: Expansion 1.10+
32% Enhanced Damage
+164 to Attack Rating
Adds 2 - 11 Fire Damage
Adds 6 - 28 Cold Damage Over 1 Secs (25 Frames)
Adds 7 Poison Damage Over 3 Secs (75 Frames)
4% Mana stolen per hit
Not great rolls but better than what Haseen was using, so it will do him for now.


Then it was time to gamble 2.5mil on circlets. This was the best and got itself a socket for a Perfect Topaz before going on Haseen's head:
Code:
Storm Cowl
Circlet
Defense: 25
Durability: 35 of 35
Required Level: 35
Fingerprint: 0xa75f9c88
Item Level: 45
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Adds 6 - 23 Cold Damage Over 1 Secs (25 Frames)
6% Life stolen per hit
+40 to Life
Attacker Takes Damage of 5
24% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Perfect Topaz


That just left the Personalize reward and I was really struggling for something to use it on. I tried shopping a different belt and bought a Plated Belt of the Colossus (+60 life) from Larzuk, but in the end decided to use it on a pair of Cleglaw's Pincers. Just a feeling that the Slow (and even the Knockback) might actually work well on this build once we start meleeing.


13 hard points in Blizzard and 10 in Cold Mastery (plus the 20 already in Ice Bolt), with +1 to Blizz and CM from the Orb, has given us a pretty killer main attack so far. We'll see how things go in NM.


Code:
Name          Character    Class       HC? Diff.   Area               Level  M/R/S/U/C/RW
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
grk           Shaetemmu    Necromancer SC  NM      Jail level 1          51  5/2/0/0/0/0
dhaos         TheAnimal    Druid       HC  NM      Rogue camp            47  5/3/0/0/0/0
jdkerr        Acephal      Amazon      HC  NM      Rogue Camp            46  2/4/0/0/1/2
Dezrok        Casti        Sorc        HC  NM      Rogue Camp            48  2/5/0/0/0/1
HC Gunther    Zounds       Paladin     SC  Normal  Lut Gholein           21  5/0/0/0/0/0
Kitteh        Olypuirs     Assassin    HC  Normal  Dark Wood             15  6/1/0/0/0/0
Dazliare      Athena       Amazon      HC  Normal  Cold Plains            6  0/0/0/0/0/0
Grisu         Flashy       Barbarian   HC  Normal  Rogue Camp             1  0/0/0/0/0/0
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RIP:
Dezrok        Chansi       Amazon      HC  NM      Cows                  75  0/6/0/0/2/1
dfp           Chantix      Sorceress   HC  Normal  Rogue Camp            19  2/3/0/0/0/0
 
Dezrok, great write up. I was hoping that I designed the tourney so that (a) all quest rewards were interesting and (b) you had a number of interesting options for equipment/gambling. It sounds like you are enjoying weighing the various options for gearing up.

I have been playing Hearthstone in what little free time I have, so I haven't made much progress on Zounds.
 
Hey HC Gunther
It does feel like a nicely balanced tourney and the quest rewards are super important and therefore interesting. It feels a bit easier than some of the other tourneys through Normal and NM (it is pretty easy to find the ctc mod on blues, yellows and crafts) but I have a feeling Hell will be somewhat tougher without access to many of the higher level Runewords, Set and Unique items.
 
Greetings all. I am throwing my hat into the ring with a Blade Fury Assassin. I do not use RWM (Rune Word Mod), so I'll be at a slight disadvantage, but by no means a crippling one - Voice of Reason in particular looks like it would be very useful.
 
Welcome Sput and good luck with the Assassin. I think Obedience would be the r/w I would miss most without RWM. I only relatively recently installed RWM and since then Obedience has become a bit of a staple.


Casti has cleared NM Act 1 and defeated Andariel. All pretty straightforward with Blizzard causing most of the carnage and Haseen chipping in to take out the couple of CI bosses that spawned. Three ctc Uniques dropped: Steelgoad in the Dark Wood, Skystrike in the Pits and Ume's Lament on level 3 of the Catacombs. The Skystrike replaced the Zephyr bow on switch but couldn't really compete with Blizzard (which is one level off being maxed).


Akara's reward had +53 mana, +9 stamina (ho-hum) and Dim Vision charges. Sweet! Casti is now wearing both of her Akara reward rings.


A ctc rare amulet was gambled during the Act, it was pretty useless with the best mod being 5% MF, but it was Casti's first ctc ammy so had to be worn.


4os Gothic Plate was found in the Barracks and it got our 3 PTopazes for an improvement over our battered flawed topaz Breast Plate.


Andy managed to kill Haseen but not before Static had done it's job, so then it was just a matter of letting her walk through Blizzards until she was dead. Her drop was uninspiring.


Casti the Sorc and Haseen the Prayer merc. Level 53, NM Lut Gholein, 7 ctc items equipped
 
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