So, I've been told that it would be alright to resurrect this thread, so I'll go ahead and do so - this was an interesting tournament (as well as the first that I participated in) so after more than one year of being absent from Diablo 2, I decided I'd want to finish up this character of mine. I'm not sure if I want to continue the IC fluff, but I'll report on the character's progress anyway.
Ruby's last update was on page 22. Since then, she's completed Act 4 on /p3. Despite having to readjust to playing this character, and playing Hardcore in general, Ruby had a very easy time in this act, really - nothing really proved to be a threat, with ~550 life and very good resists, and the character is very hardcore-friendly. Diablo wasn't difficult either since the Shadow Master tanked him very well (even the lightning hose barely hurt her), so Ruby could easily just hang back and hurl those Hurlbats. I'm a bit more afraid of Act 5 - I'll play it on /p1, but I have no doubt the Ancients will still be tough.
Not much found in the way of notable items - a lot of good gems are dropping at this point, but as for equippables:
This spiculum has a strength requirement far too high to be used (I do need a Replenishes Quantity weapon for Ancients, I think, but my rare Short Spear is still the best contender).
These gauntlets would be pretty decent if +MF% wasn't banned.
The forge dropped a Dol rune, which I've no idea how to use, if at all.
Diablo's drops were worth identifying. Sadly, there wasn't much else worth doing with them other than selling them to the nearest shop.
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Update, mid-2018:
I have been continuing this playthrough. I did complete Act 5 NM a long time ago - I still have the screenshots, but not any fresh memories, so I just have to reconstruct my experiences.
So far, my most valuable find, a Mal rune, dropped early during Act 5:
I also must have been crafting some Blood rings, because I found this in my stash:
Not technically that much better than my Manald Heal and my other ring right now, but if I need more strength, I can swap out the Manald Heal for this whenever I want.
For my merc, I ended up creating this armor at some point:
I regret this now - I actually have a Fal rune in my stash, and it's only the Lum rune that's missing until I can craft a Lionheart. And I really would like to do that - currently, I have a +100 life, +12% PR armor, which is good, but Lionheart (with its comparable life bonus altogether, a bunch of strength and resistances) will be much better.
I don't remember the details of the Ancients and Baal battles, but I have this faint memory that Ancients turned out to be less scary than I had imagined - I think that with my Crushing Blow gloves (which there should be a screenshot of somewhere earlier) and Shadow Master, I was probably able to whittle away at the Ancients in relative safety. Baal eventually fell too, with mediocre drops:
Onwards to Hell! I decided to do Act 1 on /p3, to get a bit more XP and items out of a relatively easy Act, or so I hoped. I found some interesting items early on:
The Lem rune is actually my second one. If only that had been a Lum instead.
At level 75:
I finally reached 420 Dex. If this had been a sorceress, I'm sure I could have made a better "Blaze it" joke.
Andariel's drops turned out to be uninteresting - sadly, Doomslinger is not a suitable weapon for me:
But I did find an interesting belt dropped by the Countess (whose rune drop was miserable - either a single Tal or a single Ral, not sure):
Comparing this to the earlier, now upped 'Pain Strap' that I now use (should still be there in an earlier post), this has a more balanced resist distribution with a decent life bonus and a nice FHR boost. If I can up this, it might be a nice belt to use, but it does have a smaller strength bonus than my current belt. Unfortunately, as a Battle Belt, it would require eighty-eight strength to use, which makes it a non-option before Lionheart and probably pretty hard to use even after that.
(Speaking of items requiring eighty-eight strength, I've been trying to craft some Flying Axes. I got two relatively nice ones, which I might be able to use once I get Lionheart and swap in the ring with the big strength bonus - I'll put in a screenshot once we get there.)
So, Act 2-5 of Hell remains before what might be my first Guardian! At this point, I think I'll just power through the rest of Hell on /p1. Act 1 was actually a pretty big slog at times (Wraiths, for example, being physically immune and probably highly poison-resistant, took ages to kill). It wasn't all that dangerous, aside from some stairtraps and careless moves in the more cramped areas, but my Teleport charges bailed me out of these situations every time - and Mind Blast (which I'm pumping nowadays, with little else to raise) plus Cloak of Shadows can neutralize most of the dangerous bosspacks well enough. But there are probably going to be more dangerous situations in the later acts, and at this point, as far as items go, I'm almost set, I think. I just want Lionheart (which is a matter of being lucky enough to find a Lum) and possibly a better weapon - everything else is good enough for me. At the very least, I'll stop full-clearing areas which I'm ill-suited to clear (such as all the places with Unraveler/skeleton hordes and Apparition packs, a very poor matchup for me). I don't think the extra danger and tedium are worth a slightly better chance of finding something even better - and I don't think I can find anything better than my circlet, or my crafted gloves (except for better crafted gloves, that is).
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A few days later: I've completed Act 2! Now this was interesting. The act started easily enough, Radament wasn't hard. I didn't clear all of the Halls of the Dead due to how much of a pain some of the bosspacks were, nor did I clear all of the Maggot Lair - which would otherwise have been an ideal area for me, except I started getting this bug where, occasionally, the game began to lag to an unplayable level ("one action happening every 10 seconds" level), especially when the Scarabs were spraying too much lightning. Otherwise, I had fun fighting the monsters in the outside areas.
I was worried about the Claw Viper Temple. Fangskin's group did try to attack me very quickly upon entering the second level, and I was quite afraid of dying there, but it turns out this character is pretty good at dealing with stairtraps - just spamming Mind Blast gives me enough time to think of how to deal with the stairtrap (usually involving Cloak of Shadows and maybe a charge of Teleport, or just ensuring my Shadow Master attracts all the enemies' attention and then fighting them off). I ended up killing Fangskin, but due to the Bone Warriors beyond that were constantly being re-raised (I couldn't safely kill the Guardians) and a few remaining Salamanders charging at me to create some sketchy situations, I just teleported to grab the Amulet and left.
I cleared all of the Palace, finding The Impaler - a weapon that's not too bad, but also not as good for my merc (IMO) as the 'Strength' Partizan he's using right now. I ended up clearing exactly half of the Arcane Sanctuary - I got a fourth-way Summoner, and thus cleared half of each branch as I headed directly for the end of the branches, but didn't clear the rest of the Sanctuary as all the Spectres were too much of a pain.
The Canyon of the Magi had a pretty incredible find:
A Devourer spit out this awesome little rune. As of me writing this, I'm still unsure what I should do with it. I have half a mind to just mule it off for my regular characters... I'd love to use it for this one, but I'm just not sure what for. I could build a Fortitude if I found the right socketable, but then again, should I? Smoke is a fine armor for my merc, and as for myself, Lionheart would give me just as much life and resists, while also giving me a big Strength boost to help me equip better gear. On the other hand, the +300% enhanced damage would be pretty nice, wouldn't it? I guess I should probably build a Fort... Right now I'm missing a Dol (which I can cube up - I actually cubed all my Dols up to Hels already, expecting to build a Lionheart) and a 4os armor.
Partly because I thought it would be too much of a pain, partly because of the actual potential danger of fighting Apparition packs in the cramped environment of Tal Rasha's tombs, I didn't clear the tombs at all - I decided to use my circlet's charges to teleport around the true tomb until I found Duriel. Like Andariel before him, Duriel too was pretty easy due to all the Crushing Blow I had and my Shadow Master being able to tank (at least it survives enough strikes for me to be able to throw quite a few hurlbats before having to resummon it).
Here's all of Duriel's loot:
Aside from the mediocre Nagel (which I can't use even if I wanted to), the Cube contains the rest of the loot: the Death's Hand set sword, M'avina's belt and a rare Falcata. Better loot than the "three scrolls of town portal" we're accustomed to getting from Duriel, but still useless except as stuff to sell.
On to Act 3! I still have the six false tombs, in case I find myself stuck later on and am willing to put up with the tedium to try and grind for some more gear. I'm hoping Act 3 will provide what I need, though - aside from the dungeons (with their phys-immune Dark Shapes and the Horadrim Ancient/Horror packs of the Sewers), I should be quite suited to fighting just about anything in this act.
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Ruby reporting in again after Act 3! Actually, after a very brief contemplation, I decided that obviously I need to build a Fort ASAP, and what was I even thinking, considering not to use that Lo rune?! Unfortunately, I actually had no 4os armor in my stash. I think I may have found a Dusk Shroud at some point in Act 1, but sold it, thinking I'll probably never need any 4os armor because I was planning on using a Lionheart, anyway. Then again, that may not have happened - my memories are hazy.
Instead, I continued to full-clear areas in early Act 3. I found a pair of M'avina's gloves early on, but that didn't help much. As I was clearing the Great Marsh, I had to fight a bunch of Gloams, though. Every now and then, they would hit me for somewhere between 100-200 damage, with one instance of being taken down to just below half health by a Gloam bosspack before Cloak of Shadows and my two assistants managed to distract them sufficiently.
Remember this amulet?
At this point, I was wearing an Amulet of Life Everlasting (PDR 22), but I did have this rare amulet in my stash too. At some point (a long time ago), I must have decided that the PDR will give me more benefit. Even if this was true at some point, though, it clearly isn't anymore - there were two really serious threats to my life lately, one of them being an exploding cold enchanted boss, the other being Gloams. Obviously the resists are more important at this point, d'oh! And the extra skill levels are a nice bonus.
This decision was even more justified when two white Wyrmhides dropped in the Great Marsh! The first one was crude, so I held out, hoping for something better, but the second one was in good condition.
I cleared the act up till Lower Kurast - the Swampy Pit and Flayer Dungeon had undead pygmies, but my merc and shadow master tanked them well enough, and with Mind Blast, I ensured nothing threatened me up close. At that point, I save & exited to switch out my gear. Looking at some of the stuff I've been stashing, I realized that I had the capability to reach not just the 84 strength requirement of the Wyrmhide, but the eighty-eight Strength requirement of the Flying Axe as well, without Lionheart!
So, I switched in the following items:
(^This one was new - Ormus' reward)
Combined with the rare amulet, these items gave me 93 strength! That meant there was nothing preventing me from heading back to Normal to claim my socket quest reward, and plug the Lo rune (along with the other three) into the newly 4os Wyrmhide. And presto:
Here we go! I certainly wasn't ever expecting to be able to assemble such a powerful runeword in an untwinked game like this. The Fort got the lowest roll possible on resistances, but the highest on 'life per level', so I'm satisfied.
Together with this, it's also time to reveal the best Flying Axe I had crafted before:
Nothing special, aside from a sweet Enhanced Damage% stat. Now that I have Fortitude, with its +300% Enhanced Physical Damage, I figured that a high physical weapon damage like this would benefit quite well, despite its slower speed.
Here are my stats now (subtract ~400 - not exactly sure how much - to get how much damage I deal without the Venom).
It soon turned out that the Flying Axe doesn't actually seem to outdo the Hurlbat as far as damage per second is concerned, at least not against most monsters, or not noticeably. In fact, often it seemed the Hurlbat was doing better. Still, the big stack size is convenient. Now, I'm using the Demon Cleaver as my default weapon, and especially against monsters that are more likely to be resistant/immune to poison than to physical, with my old Raven Sever being switched in against monsters I want to take out quickly, or monsters I think are particularly susceptible to poison.
At this point, with Fortitude, I think I'm set. I might keep crafting throwable Blood axes to see if I get something even better than what I already have, but right now, I'm sure that there's nothing else I really need improvement on. If I can't complete the rest of the game and become a Guardian, that'll be due to my lack of skill, not my lack of good gear, and full-clearing everything will just increase the chances of me getting complacent and rushing into danger that suddenly kills me. So, I'm just going to rush through the rest of the game as fast as possible!
In fact, I did exactly this for the rest of Act 3. The Sewers weren't that hard despite the undead dolls, Travincal was quite easy too (my merc actually was pretty survivable against the council members), and the Durance was actually quite relaxing as there were no dolls. Mephisto was easy too - he couldn't kill my merc and Shadow Master fast enough, and our combined damage output was so good that I think I actually managed to defeat him in either 1 or 2 trips! He didn't drop any good loot, mind you.
So, time for Acts 4 and 5 - the final stretch!
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