kestegs said:I never got a chance to comment on some of this stuff that I meant to, so doing a little housekeeping and a table update here!
jiansonz said:
Oh yeah, I remember this pack from Classic v1.03. Multishot FE, right?
Yup, he was pretty stupid.
felixbavaria said:
Can I borrow that? Very nice.
ranagrande said:
That'll be a challenge for sure, good luck!
OldSoldier said:
I ended up selling this amulet. I am interested to know if anyone thinks it is a mistake. My amulet now is the Mahim Oak Curio. Be honest, I haven't played in years!
I would have kept it for my druid, but I don't think it's right for you as you already have a lot of mana.
bladejj said:
I really wanted to do a pure light sorc with energy in this, so I'm glad to see you doing it. The thing that deterred me most from doing it is no insight and no warmth. Good luck!
Turbocannon said:
Welcome, and good luck! The biggest thing that stops me from ever playing a throw build is the repair trips that I think you'll need. Other than that it sounds cool, and I think you're the only one to enter with a pure dex build.
I will also agree with felix, I don't like assassins in tournaments anymore due to the game crashing that they cause. And even if you only self use a stripped dead HC character you can't trade anything, as that gear is then tainted, jsut something to think about.
Code:Table of Heroes: Forum Name Class Char Name LVL ACT Area ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ kestegs Elemental Druid Rhett 81 A2(H) Lut Gholein Jiansonz Summon Necromancer Mago 76 A1(H) Black Marsh felixbavaria Bow Amazon Paige 75 A1(H) Dark Wood Norcim105 P&B Necromancer Bones 67 A5(NM) Harogath OldSoldier Bow Amazon Sharon 63 A3(NM) Travincal OldSoldier P&B Necromancer Splat 60 A3(NM) Kurast Docks felixbavaria Shadow Assassin Cisa 48 A1(NM) Rogue Encampment Toa3t Bow Amazon Marnie 14 A1 Blood moor logoutzero Warcry Barbarian Tremolo 11 A1 Stony field jamesixgun Bow Amazon Fatema 11 A1 Cold plains Bladejj Lightning Sorceress Element 1 A1 Rogue encampment ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 Dazliare Fire Sorc Quelana 61 A3(NM) Flayer Jungle 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2015] The Committed Tournament [by kestegs]
- Thread starter Grisu
- Start date
Turbocannon said:
Turbocannon said:
bladejj said:Element, the lightning tree and energy only Sorceress began with humble beginnings whacking stuff with her stick. She has made it through Act 1 normal with little stress. The lack of life will probably get her one hit KO'ed in the future, but for now things are going OK. I will say, this will be the most challenging character I have ever played. Below are the challenges listed in order of difficulty Element will face in her journey:
1) No vitality - for obvious reasons
2) No crowd control - I have to rely on teleport and the mercenary
3) No strength / dexterity - severely limits my gear options, specifically when it comes to 3 sockets helms and 4 socketed armors. This is wear no-vitality characters get most of they life from, for me, I will most likely have to dedicate some of those sockets to strength/dexterity or hel runes.
4) Lightning skills only - single tree only means no real backup skills for LI's
5) No shield - maybe, unless I can find or imbue a great one handed orb. Unfortunately, I do not think orbs can be bought or gambled. This is will limit my resists, but this will partially be offset by energy shield.
6) No cannot be frozen - easy sources are off limits due to no MF.
7) No MF - will severely limit gear. Through Act 1 I only found 1 unique (Greyform) and 1 set (Cleglaw's Shield).
I am greatly enjoying the no MF rule from a playability standpoint. This is a great relief when playing with a fragile character. I typically try to keep max MF at all times and neglect safety in the early stages of the game, typically normal and most of NM.
I'm glad to be in Act 2 as I will soon get an assistant to take my beatings and help scout in the process. Patience will be key as I've already had a couple NDE's charges (or teleporting) into rooms without taking the necessary precautions. With that said, Charged Bolt, then Lightning, then Chain Lighting made quick work of Act 1.
Besides the Greyform armor, other good finds were 13 topazes (useless in this tournament) and +18 strength in charms! A sorceress has the lowest starting strength at a measly 10, so these helped me equip a 3 row belt quite early. I'm looking forward to continuing to stream roll through Act 2 with high lightning damage. I will give another update once Duriel is dead.
Element, Lightning / Energy only Sorceress, Level 21, Lut Gholein
OldSoldier said:
Adam Vrána said:Entering the tournament with Yajirushi, pure dex bow Assasin. My plan is to max Venom, BoS, Shadow Master and see what she is capable of. She will make A1 on P1 settings, as she wants to hire desert mercenary latter and uses only bows ATM. Once she kills Andy, the P setings will grow higher. Report will follow soon, hopefuly
YAJIRUSHI - Pure Dexterity Bow Assasin - Level 4, Cold Plains
jiansonz said:
Adam Vrána said:Thanks, good tipjiansonz said:
jiansonz said:We're moving on, and it's surprisingly straightforward once my army is built. Situations do happen, mostly because I can't control my army. I start every session with just merc and a Fire Golem, my Edge bow and my Circlet with Teleport charges. Maybe I should sacrifice +3 skills and use that circlet full time? Hmm, maybe later.
It's always a risk that things get messy when a dungeon branches. Like here, where it was suddenly a two front battle:
Tower Cellar was tricky at times. It was important not to advance too fast against archers. Those archer women have been the worst enemies yet, because of how they move away from melee. I need walls to push them against or a full army that can swarm them quickly.
Ghosts, on the other hand, are dream enemies for my army. They just melt before all the elemental artillery. The double boss pack on the last floor was quickly defeated:
And the best part, they make great Revives. Fast enough to keep up when we move (usually) and immune to physical damage.
A Devilkin settlement in Pit level 1 managed to push us back and cause a retreat. That's rare. Beside the typical 3 shaman + warriors packs, there were Champion Devilkin and the real threat: Cursed Extra Strong Dark Archers. I had to retreat shortly after taking this screenie:
By this time, they had eaten four Fire Golems (forcing me to switch to the cheaper Clay Golems), all skeleton warriors and more than half of my mages. If I lose too many mages, all types of Fallen take a long times to kill.
Pit level 2 was much more tame:
Is that all you've got? Ha!
(Ok, there was a boss archer pack also, but they mostly just had a boss that was hard to kill (LI + FI).
BTW, I was not too worried about the Devilkin by my two mages there to the right - no way they can ever get past the Revived one behind the mages.
Recent finds: mostly boring finds, actually. Players 1 and no MF makes for lean times. Best find was a low quality Blade Bow that I normalized, recipe-socketed and made a better Edge in. Probably won't make a difference but it sure feels nice to have an l33t weapon now that I happen to have the stats to use it.
I've saved up over 100 rings that I will cube if I reach level 80. I gamble a lot of amulets, but that Golemlord's ammy still eludes me.
Conqueror Mago the Golemancing Lord of Mages and Ajheed the Fire Mage, level 77, Hell outer Cloister next
Turbocannon said:
ranagrande said:
Turbocannon said:Ruby went from "that girl who always goes into battle in a thong for some reason" (she did pretty quickly ditch her heavy ring mail for a breastplate with three rubies socketed into it) to a well-renowned heroine pretty quickly after cleaning the Greater Mummy Radament out of the sewers, bringing back the sunlight after a day-long period of darkness induced by the Claw Vipers, finding several lost Horadric artifacts and killing a rogue magician in the Arcane Sanctuary. Mostly thanks to the first two, actually, since the average townsfolk couldn't care less about her more distant adventures. She was now accompanied by the mercenary Alhizeer, who Ruby hired more as a traveling companion than an actual mercenary (a role her ever-silent Shadow fulfilled just fine). He was a good fighter, mind you, but had little sense of battle strategy - Ruby often found herself frustrated having to order him around, tell him to stick in or pull back; it was a much more difficult thing to do than controlling her Shadow, which was pretty much an extension of her own mind.
Ruby accidentally misunderstood Horazon's journal, thinking the sign therein signifies a false tomb, thus she searched all six others first. By that time, Diablo had already reached his brother Baal and freed him. Instead, she was faced with the huge slug-prince-thing Duriel. Whereas Andariel had tried to make herself as beautiful as possible (by a certain standard...) Duriel appears to have gone for quite the opposite effect. Indeed, where Andariel preferred the spacious Catacombs of the Rogue Monastery as her home, Duriel was more comfortable with a tiny, claustrophobic hole. He was also much more of a match for Ruby. He was able to easily dispatch her Shadow and Alhizeer had to be rescued with mortal wounds several times; once, Duriel even managed to slam into Ruby herself, a powerful blow that would perhaps have killed her if it hadn't been for the enchantments of the rubies within her breastplate! Nonetheless, after a long fight, the Lord of Pain fell, and Alhizeer could only cringe as his butch, no-nonsense boss temporarily turned into a stereotypical "princess" at delight upon finding a circlet in Duriel's chamber - among many other junk evidently left behind by other dead tomb raiders, including several throwing weapons that couldn't match Ruby's gear.
***
Another act complete. Act 3 will be done on /p8. That circlet was a pretty nice find - 1-91 lightning damage is pretty massive and should help killing speed a lot. If only that +9 dex had been +9 strength, I'd imagine it would probably serve us for all of Normal and maybe at least half of Nightmare! It'll become obsolete, sure, but so far I'm not having much luck finding items anyway. Literally zero set or unique items the entire game! Also, I've found a suspicious amount of El and Eld runes, so much indeed that I actually ran Hell Countess with a high-level softcore sorc for a while just to check if drop rates didn't accidentally revert to pre-1.13 rates for some reason.
Duriel indeed gave me a scary moment, but he didn't take as long to kill as I had feared - I could probably have taken him on at /p8 pretty well.
I did get that CoS crash for the first time, at a mummy sarcophagus. That will be annoying, although it seems the bug only triggers if the sarcophagus (or other immobile non-combatant monster) is in sight - I did once find a mummy sarcophagus with the blinding effect hovering above it, previously out of sight. This does mean that Act IV, up until the City of the Damned, might be a lot more challenging than it should be, in all difficulties. All in all, though, regular monsters rarely threaten me much yet.
Ruby is now level 27. Full clears are starting to become quite dull - I ask this of more experienced tournament players: at what point do you generally stop doing full clears of all auxiliary areas? Or do you sometimes do full clears and sometimes not, depending on your level/location/whatever?
jiansonz said:
OldSoldier said:
kestegs said:Nice progress everyone, keep it up!
Well....Act 2 was started on /p1, as promised. It was immediately apparent that I am almost too powerful for /p1, as things die very quickly. The loot also feels horrible after doing act 1 at /p5. The no drop chance is just too high for my liking. There were some tough spots where I was glad it was /p1 though.
Halls of the dead had some nasty spear throwers. But not too dangerous really. Not too much happened early on that was interesting. Claw viper temple wasn't bad either, and I took the clean alter area on level 2 with teleport.
There was some tough archer sin the palace, here's a boss pack and a champ pack stuck together.
Arcane sanctuary produced way too many Ghost packs with nasty mods or that were CI also. 1 2 3
Hmmm...that's a very rude amulet to roll
I decided to try to reroll some GCs since I have plenty of spare pgems. 3rd roll produced this amazing charm. Sorry JiansonzAnd yes, I am using it for the life.
Make a cool shield they said. You can wear it they said. You're not a complete wuss they said. Jerks.
The tombs proved to be rather difficult. Ghosts were of course not fun, but the combination of ghosts and unravelers was really bad. My first bad boss. And then the Puke brothers 1 and 2. That last room was terrible, the position of those unraveler champs was almost impossible to get a tornado on without going in the room, and this guy was also in there.
This was the most danger I was in all act. They were extra fast, and I somehow screwed up my TP staff and it wasn't hot keyed anymore. Had to run all the way back to the entrance.
Durial was simple of course, and very quick. Drop wasn't very good at first sight. But the CV turned out pretty nice for me. Of course it's a failed unique, grrrrrrr. The amn was my first socket quest I've used. It took his max damage from 800 to 1800, so it was a nice upgrade.
Rhett, Elemental Druid and Pratham the prayer guard, level 83, Kurast Docks
Adam Vrána said:
Yajirushi has finished Act I on P1 settings. With the BoS skill she delivers swift K.O. to every single demon who hungers for her blood, even Andariel. A true smooth killing assasin in this pretty easy and funny stage of the game. Let´s see what comes next, with a new hireling, joining beside her in Lut Gholein.
YAJIRUSHI - Pure Dexterity Bow Assasin - Level 17, The Sewers next
OldSoldier said:I have some updates to do. Sharon has gone forth from Travincal to slay both Mephisto and Diablo. She uses mostly Freezing Arrow to keep the enemies from ganging up on Haseen. His ethereal rare partizan with Amp is pretty good at whittling away on bad guys with high physical resistance but he's no heavy hitter. As such her favorite tactic is to keep as many folks at bay as possible while he goes from one to the next until they are dead. Repeat ad foreverum.
This was a fun fight. The freezing doesn't last a long time on Blood Lords so they got a chance to run around a bit. No real danger though.
I tried the moat trick with Mephisto when he killed Haseen but it wasn't going very well since Sharon has no crushing blow, so she decided to keep resurrecting and feeding him pots. He got into a fairly stable situation once and got Meph pretty good. Here's a shot of the big old Demon sitting in the middle of an explosion for about 600 damage.
His drop stunk. In the Plains of Despair, Haseen was able to tank Izual, which is sometimes hard if Izzy gets a good weapon, at least to my understanding. In this case, it took many blue potions but he went down and both skill points went to maximize Freezing Arrow (it wasn't even at 20 points at this point and I think maybe two points in Cold Arrow as a synergy).
Here's a nice set of cupcakes. This shot is the first of a double boss pack. Easy.
Here's the second boss in the stack. I wish they were all this easy. Still they made Sharon drink the blues. I'm surprised she hasn't turned blue yet from chugging those things.
This is one of Sharon's favorite type places: a linear battlefield where she can put her area-effect weapons with a 25% pierce chance from Skystrike to good use. With Haseens' blessed aim active, her hit chance is above 90%. The Sander's Boots add +100 AR and her rings add +134 more, boosted by the merc aura. When situations arise that don't call for heavy dependence on piercing, she uses the Edge RW, which gives the thorns aura and an additional +1 bow skills because it is on an amazon bow. I'm still on the lookout for a low quality Matriarchal Bow for more base damage.
Diablo was not very easy for her. She ended up using guided arrow. A bit after this was taken, she resurrected Haseen and fed him a bunch of pots and he helped her chance to hit and also assisted with Amp Damage.
Diablo's drop was also junk. This is another incident where Freezing Arrow came in handy. The enemy was constricted space-wise and so Haseen faced them one on one, with the boss waiting his turn. Ha ha!
Some of her rune finds and a cool jewel below. So far she's found 5 Dols (Splat had to make one from 3 Shaels to get his White RW), 2 Fals, 3 Hels, 2 Ios, 2 Kos, and a Lem rune. She has what she needs now to make an Obedience (except for a 5 socket elite polearm) and can also do a Treachery or Passion. She lacks a Lum to make a Lionheart or Smoke.
She killed Shenk and is waiting patiently for her turn (Splat is faster so I am pushing him).
Destroyer Sharon, level 68 Bowazon, NM Frigid Highlands
OldSoldier said:Splat has made some good progress lately as well. Last we saw him, he was standing on the docks at Kurast, ready to move forth into the dense jungles toward Kurast itself. He decided to play at /P8 for act III after playing act II at /P7.
In one of his first encounters, a demon group dropped a jade figurine which in a whirlwind provided Splat with a nice boost in life! It is like the feeling I got in the no-vitality tournament when the red bulb got bigger. Ahhhhh!
Sszark has a nasty habit of running away when he is low on life. He was no different this time, until I realized that Splat had a way to stop that retreat, and keep Emilio alive through an extra strong cursed boss encounter.
Although Splats primary offensive spell is now Bone Spear, Teeth still has a place. Here, and in many areas in the jungles, he employed this tactic when many enemies lined up along the river bank facing him.
I used Norcim's technique of handling Stormtree. As "they" always say, if it works, don't reinvent the wheel!
We did run into a bit of trouble in the Swampy Pit. The merc bug hit at some point in the jungle and this level contained undead flayers. One popped nearby Splat and took all of his bone armor and this much life. I took a screenshot because he was the only one around, but there were dozens more. My tactic in this place was to prison them if possible (not usually possible based on how small they are and fast they move) or run circles around Emilio, who could swipe at them and freeze them with Iceblink. Then it was a simple matter of spearing them to death, whereupon they shattered into ice shards. This was a stressful dungeon.
Battlemaid Sarina got pwned. Notice Splat cleared out the sides first. Bone prisons and walls are like a calling card for bad guys from several screens away, so this was important.
Here is the one area I wasn't able to clear at this point. I went forward a few steps and ran into a bunch of serpents, who charged us back to the entryway. I put up a row of walls to block the entrance and provide a barrier, but they hit the walls pretty hard and broke through my first line of defense in short order. My ability to kill them was slower than their ability to break through, and that first round of bone wall brought about 10 more to the party. This picture is of my second stand, and my decision to simply keep firing into them rather than build several more walls, which may have blocked me from the door in any event, and when they broke through the last two walls here, and poured into the area I stood in this shot, I just left. Mission failure but no deeds. I'm sure there was a high rune hiding in here.
Travincal was uneventful, as was most of the Durance. Here Bremm has no chance and he just took his medicine. His lightning bolts burned up the prisons pretty fast but they are easily recast with almost 1000 mana.
Wyand was the same story as Bremm. Easy.
Mephisto is pretty easy. I decided not to do the cheesy moat trick with Bone Spirit, instead using some of the potions accumulated thusfar and keeping Emilio alive. Emilio was using his Malice partizan which certainly helped. What can you see about this drop that excited me? Yep, that Shael!!!
Some other drops along the way, including two unique bows, either of which would have helped Sharon. He also found a Lem and a Lum in this act, both very useful runes. The Peasant Crown was interesting but I haven't tried wearing it yet.
Destroyer Splat, don't remember the level, NM Pandemonium Fortress
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OldSoldier said:Once Splat found the Shael that Mephisto was hiding, he was in business. He'd found his third Shael and wasted no time cubing it into a Dol. Way back in Act II, he'd shopped for at least an hour, finally getting a +3 Bone Spear bone wand. Well, rather than spend a Larzuk reward for it to get two automatic sockets, he tried the cube recipe, which obviously returned a single socket, so he used the second best one he had.
Here is the anatomy of his weapon upgrade.
Here is the final result. It is certainly a nice one, though down one + skill point from the one Norcim uses.
See the damage with his simple +2 Necro skills weapon? He also wore a +2 Bone Spear head at this point.
After equipping the White wand, this is his damage output. About +40%, so not too shabby.
Izual was a piece of cake and points went to Corpse Explosion in anticipation of hell difficulty.
Diablo fried Emilio several times, so we switched to Bone Spirit and running as far as the stamina held out, which it did.
Just look at that drop! Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest (life leech for Emilio), a weapon upgrade for him, and some ridiculous sharkskin gloves which I've shown below. They are not usable for this tournament but they are nice for sure!
Destroyer Splat, level 65 (I think) bone necromancer, NM Harrogath
OldSoldier said:I almost forgot his act IV drops, which were pretty good considering the no MF rule. Of course he got a Dol rune after burning up 3 Shaels. He also got an Um, which opens up a possible Crescent Moon or Duress RW (more on that later). A Pul is an interesting rune but other than Stone on a Defiance merc, how would it benefit the team? Also, are those gloves shown in this screenshot any good? I know the ones Diablo dropped are pretty sweet but I don't know about these. CS amazon? When I play Sharon I always hope for a junk matriarchal bow like Splat saw here. It would make a great Edge!
