Pb_pal said:
[2015] The Committed Tournament [by kestegs]
- Thread starter Grisu
- Start date
japanzaman said:Hiheels has defeated Nightmare Baal and will look to close out the cow level before moving onto Hell at lvl 68. Sorry for not having wonderful pics to post- I just don't trust myself to take those while doing this kind of challenge.
Some thoughts about Nightmare:
Ancients- Very glad there was no PI or cursed one here, as that would have been dangerous. There was a Fanatacized aura that made the WW one kind of dangerous. My merc is defiance, so hit defense was near 6K, more than enough to tank the 3 of them without loosing life too quickly. I forgot to swap out my Strength weapon for the CB in the beginning, so the battle was a bit longer and more hectic than it needed to be. Never in doubt, but I burned through a few more purples than I really needed to.
Minions- Pretty easy overall. Managed to split Lister's pack in half, which made dealing with them fairly simple. High defense wins the day here every time.
Baal- Again, very easy. Act Bosses are actually pretty simple for this build given the high AR and CB. My LL is well over 35%, so any time I connect my life is instantly refilled. I probably didn't even need the weaken charges for this battle.
Moving forward:
I managed to get an Um from Hellforge (thank god yes), so I've decided to either make Duress or Crescent Moon depending on what socketable drops first. I also have the runes for Black, so I'll keep my eye open for one of those as well. Hell is going to be pretty dangerous, and I could easily deeds at any time with the low life on this character (650). Each area will be long and grinding, and without some really nice gear this character will not hold up well, even at P1.
Oh well, let's get it on.
jiansonz said:
japanzaman said:
jiansonz said:
Southpaw8668 said:Ema and Devak finally met their maker against no other than NM Duriel. I knew I should have taken Act II at /p1 instead of /p8. Oh well, now I can start Pb_pal's new tourney, since I've been anticipating that one anyway.
Ema and Devak Level 55, Deeds with Duriel
japanzaman said:
Pb_pal said:
felixbavaria said:Paige has moved into Act IV.
As usual, teaming up with an Act II merc means pwnage, even more so if you have a decent mana pool to support him with spells. Exploding Arrow keeps most packs in hit recovery lock at this stage and mowing through undead with a medieval rocket launcher is really a lot of fun.
Fangskin was owned quickly:
No noteworthy fights in Act III. Both Duriel and Mephisto required a trip to town to restock potions but the merc survived both fights.
Best find so far came from Act III:
Entropy Torc
Amulet
Required Level: 15
Fingerprint: 0xef7c6a9c
Item Level: 23
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to Strength
+22 to Life
+12 Maximum Stamina
Cold Resist +15%
Fire Resist +14%
32% Extra Gold from Monsters
Mephisto's drop included a nice Pike for Pratham:
Bone Needle
Pike
Two Hand Damage: 20 - 91
Durability: 14 of 25
Required Level: 10
Required Strength: 60
Required Dexterity: 45
Fingerprint: 0xd5ed69fc
Item Level: 26
Version: Expansion 1.10+
46% Enhanced Damage
+75 to Attack Rating
Adds 6 Poison Damage Over 2 Secs (50 Frames)
5% Mana stolen per hit
Nothing noteworthy from gambling, except a Static Circlet for Pratham.
Notable S/U finds: two (!) Pelta Lunatas, Iratha's gloves.
Focusing on +life items, Paige now has 314 HP and and 327 MP. That's a half decent life pool for a ranged character I guess, and the large mana pool is very useful too. I'm still using Skull Caps and Hard Leather Armors since the most useful items she has are the amulet and the RalRalRal Long Bow, so 23 STR seems fine for now ...
Paige the Energy Bowazon and Pratham the Prayer Merc, level 33, River of Flame next
japanzaman said:
kestegs said:Nice work finishing up NM, and good luck in hell! Can't wait to see how it all works out.jiansonz said:R.I.P. Yau.
Tough break with those Hulks. A pack of bulky critters is indeed harder to nail with Shockwave than a pack of small ones.
Mago's plan for Pindle's garden was to hang back and attract as few undead as possible.
(I think it goes against the spirit of full clears to use up corpses before they rise. Although if I make it here again, there might be a Revive or two, just to get started. Or maybe I'll Cloak them with a Nadir helm...)
The golem is immune to knockback, which is a big plus here. Mago helped out with his flail. Got a little scare when he and Ajheed got boxed in by about three of them. A TP solved this. After I was sure they wouldn't rise again, I could build a full army. Cold mages were of course banned against Pindle's pack (and also on one of the temple floors that had shambling undead).
Flayers aplenty in the Temple Halls. Meleers on Valor, blowdarters on Pain. Second floor had zealots, which I've already told you are annoying for Mago. A couple of times, I had to pull back my army with a 'portal jump' so we could kill the zealots without them getting healed by half a dozen Heirophants.
Nilly was owned, as you might have guessed. A bigger problem for a scrooge like me was this:
After I did everything possible to save space (hold a war scepter instead of a wand, sell all blue/red potions, key stack and TP tome, leave one big item (the Partizan) to store on the cursor), I still had to sell both Templar Coats...
Next session was the last one in Act V, starting with Ancients' Way. Hell Lords, oh my. Hell Lord minions, oh my.
Those Carvers were a blessing, though. You do not see it in the screenie, but there are two regular Hell Lord corpses also. Revive those three, and add some mages, and we should be able to take the rest of this boss pack. I just hoped there wouldn't be too many more monsters...
Worked fine:
I didn't mind having several poison mages here. They were actually really useful because they fired at different targets and the main damage was done by the Revives anyway.
As soon as I had found the exit stairs and the WP, I looked for opportunities to bring some Revives to the Summit. That would be a great help. I could go back and clear the rest and the Cellar later. On the trail to the exit, I used three Town Portals trying to get some Revives with me to the exit. Ended up with just two: a Hell Lord and an Afflicted.
Committed to a first Ancients roll on /p8, that can get ugly...
I rolled FE Korlic and Cursed for the other two. The Ancients attacked Ajheed if I had Clay Golem out (Korlic was especially tenacious pursuing him - had to give him a couple of purples), but I soon found out that they preferred attacking the Fire Golem over Ajheed. They probably checked for highest listed damage (which meant Mago was pretty safe...).
Several mages got in the way of whirls and thrown axes. Talic died first. Taking stock after that:
The Thorns did the most damage. Ancients sure took a while, but it was a surprisingly safe victory. One mage survived.
Cleared out Ancients' Way and Icy Cellar. Had trouble bringing much of the army with me.
Then came Worldstone Keep level 1. Oh my, it was WILD! It was like the game suddenly had decided to kill me. Vile Witches and Invaders. My army was doomed from getting Amped and Blood Star-ed and then came a super fast Invader bosspack! It happened so fast that I found it best to TP out before they obliterated me.
I had moved slightly up-left and had had a quick glance at the map while I entered, so I knew there was maybe a chance to lose most of that Invader pack by teleporting immediately right into a little alcove if I re-entered from the Ancients' Way WP and the stairs. Which is just what I did (note the mini-map):
A Vile Witch bosspack isn't kind either, but at least they goof around a little and aren't as focused/dangerous as those Invaders. I can resummon Gumby every second if I have to. He's cheap and I have a deep mana pool (even stats distribution, so loads more Energy than a standard character has). One Invader minion found us. I switched to Edge and it soon crumbled from hitting the golem. Things got very lively in this little alcove. Another minion Invader, more witches. I had to save Ajheed again with purples when some Zealots also ran in here. And of course we were Amped the whole time from those witches. Very scary a few times. A witch corpse? Revive! Zealots attacking me! Panic purple. Recast golem in their face (I could afford this since the revived witch now blocked incoming blood star volleys).
I wish I had this whole sequence on video. I didn't play perfectly but evidently well enough.
The whole floor took over an hour, mostly because of two massive mobs of Heirophants healing each other endlessly. The biggest concentration had EIGHT all within sight of each other!
WSK 2 and 3 were super easy. Throne level (Doom Knights, Salamanders and Stygian Furies) had some great action, and it was good that I arrived with many Revives.
Two Oblivion Knights neck high in s*it:
Edge Thorns was used again, against Lister's pack. Two Revived Venom Lords and the golem held them in place.
Baal had no chance against the Thorns golems either. Clay Golem slowed him down so the Hoarfrosts were again useless. My one mage, a lightning shooter raised from Lister's corpse, survived the fight.
On to my biggest fear in Nightmare, the cow level. I knew they would make great Revives, but the main problem would be to get started. Well, the very beginning was OK:
Those gave me two Revives and four mages. Those mages got wiped out when cows from three directions arrived in the next fight. I moved over to using only golem and Revives, switched to the Edge bow and tagged all cows with PMH. This worked slowly, but it did work. Problem was that I was limited to 4 Revives with this gear setup (would have been 6 if I had swapped out my teleport amulet but I dared not to at this stage). King's pack arrived and the situation got a bit crazy, and I ran out of arrows. No arrows had dropped from the first 20 or so slain mosters here.
I saw a few corpses that were a bit away from the main fight, and raised mages from those. Got a poison shooter, yay! No dire need for more arrows to bring down the King's pack. Stopped regeneration + Thorns + Revive melee would be enough. Now I had enough corpses to raise a full army. Skeleton warriors would be a waste, they can't handle this kind of slaughter. Switched to wand + head and raised what mages and Revives I could. Portalled back to town, switched amulets and raised some more.
I now made the decision to kill everything here in one go without going to town, replacing Revives and mages as they would fall or time out. I knew that quite a bit of loot would be mulched by the game, but I have only space in my inventory for one spetum-sized and one armor-sized item and all those selling trips would be very stressful because of the revive timers running. It was a big difference having 10 cows compared to having 5 cows, when it comes to engaging new enemy packs in ways that would not leave most of my mages dead.
Example of a good fighting situation:
After a while, I at least checked with Alt now and then to see if there was any exciting loot (I saw none) but I didn't think of this with the King's drop. I actually have no idea what he dropped. There was nothing left there when I had completed the 'killing tour' of the place. Some small parts had all the loot left, some had the blues, runes and gems and yet other parts had only a few yellows and some gems.
Not sure what to do with my gear now. Probably going to gamble some dual resist gloves and rings, and swap some charms. Maybe reroll some charms as well. I could get a lot more +life in circlet/amulet slots, or wear my Wyrm's Amulet of Teleportation full-time but that means giving up valuable +skills.
Mago will see you in Hell. That could get interesting.
Conqueror Mago the Golemancing Lord of Mages and Ajheed the Fire Mage, level 75, Hell Rogue Encampment
Southpaw8668 said:Ema and Devak finally met their maker against no other than NM Duriel. I knew I should have taken Act II at /p1 instead of /p8. Oh well, now I can start Pb_pal's new tourney, since I've been anticipating that one anyway.
Ema and Devak Level 55, Deeds with Duriel
Oh no! That stinks! The one /p setting for each act is harder than I initially thought, it forces you to make some tough choices, and there's no going back! RIP
felixbavaria said:Paige has moved into Act IV.
As usual, teaming up with an Act II merc means pwnage, even more so if you have a decent mana pool to support him with spells. Exploding Arrow keeps most packs in hit recovery lock at this stage and mowing through undead with a medieval rocket launcher is really a lot of fun.
Fangskin was owned quickly:
No noteworthy fights in Act III. Both Duriel and Mephisto required a trip to town to restock potions but the merc survived both fights.
Best find so far came from Act III:
Entropy Torc
Amulet
Required Level: 15
Fingerprint: 0xef7c6a9c
Item Level: 23
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to Strength
+22 to Life
+12 Maximum Stamina
Cold Resist +15%
Fire Resist +14%
32% Extra Gold from Monsters
Mephisto's drop included a nice Pike for Pratham:
Bone Needle
Pike
Two Hand Damage: 20 - 91
Durability: 14 of 25
Required Level: 10
Required Strength: 60
Required Dexterity: 45
Fingerprint: 0xd5ed69fc
Item Level: 26
Version: Expansion 1.10+
46% Enhanced Damage
+75 to Attack Rating
Adds 6 Poison Damage Over 2 Secs (50 Frames)
5% Mana stolen per hit
Nothing noteworthy from gambling, except a Static Circlet for Pratham.
Notable S/U finds: two (!) Pelta Lunatas, Iratha's gloves.
Focusing on +life items, Paige now has 314 HP and and 327 MP. That's a half decent life pool for a ranged character I guess, and the large mana pool is very useful too. I'm still using Skull Caps and Hard Leather Armors since the most useful items she has are the amulet and the RalRalRal Long Bow, so 23 STR seems fine for now ...
Paige the Energy Bowazon and Pratham the Prayer Merc, level 33, River of Flame next
Sounds like a lot of fun! Nice progress!
japanzaman said:
Awww, that sucks! You did extremely well to make it that far in melee with no vitality! RIP.
I'm most of the way through act 3 NM now, not a lot to report, so I'll just save it up for later.
kestegs said:Well, there's officially more dead than alive
Code:Table of Heroes: Forum Name Class Char Name LVL ACT Area ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jiansonz Summon Necromancer Mago 75 A1(H) Blood Moor kestegs Elemental Druid Rhett 59 A3(NM) Travincal felixbavaria Shadow Assassin Cisa 48 A1(NM) Rogue encampment Norcim105 P&B Necromancer Bones 49 A1(NM) Blood Moor felixbavaria Bow Amazon Paige 33 A4 River of flame Dazliare Fire Sorc Quelana ?? A3 Jungle Toa3t Bow Amazon Marnie 14 A1 Blood moor logoutzero Warcry Barbarian Tremolo 11 A1 Stony field jamesixgun Bow Amazon Fatema 11 A1 Cold plains ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Fallen (RIP): Forum Name Class Char Name LVL ACT Area ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Azimuthus Trap Assassin Fury 80 A5(H) Ancients japanzaman Martial Assassin Highheels 70 A1[H] Underground Passage Pb_pal Shift Druid Yau 60 A3[NM] Spider Forest Southpaw8668 Javalein Amazon Ema 55 A2[NM] Duriel logoutzero Warcry Barbarian Barry 51 A1(NM) Jail Dezrok Martial Assassin Marita 50 A1(NM) The Cave L2 Southpaw8668 Summon Necromancer Krelos 30 A3 UK temples Dazliare Fire Sorc Atronach 19 A1 Catacombs Collateral.Damage Combat Paladin Parker 15 A1 Stony field GooberGrape Shift Druid Vilkas 14 A1 Black Marsh Dazliare Fire Sorc ??? 12 A1 Stony field -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SunsetVista said:
Dazliare said:
japanzaman said:
SunsetVista said:
japanzaman said:
kestegs said:
felixbavaria said:Paige did her best not to disappoint her maker by an untimely death in Normal difficulty.
Not a bad drop either, given 0 MF.
I anticipated that the biggest hurdle in Normal would be Diablo, and it was indeed a long and sometimes nerve-wracking fight (/p8 of course). Maxed fire and lightning resists meant sacrificing some of the +life gear, and with 270 life even being touched by the hose hurts quite a bit.
That's an Angelic Halo, not the most useful ring for her but I'll take it.
Act V was easy, with Freezing Arrow growing in power, only annoyance were the Blood Mana cursing witches and the Cold resistant monsters. Nice finds: 2 Large Charms of Sustenance and a triple-res rare amulet.
Will gamble ~2 M gold and shop some wands before continuing into Nightmare. But first for some deep frozen beef ...
Destroyer Paige the Bowazon and Slayer Pratham the walking Partizan with Prayer aura, level 48, Normal Cows next
OldSoldier said:
