[2015] The Committed Tournament [by kestegs]

Southpaw8668 said:
Ema has got back into the fray and made it to Arreat Plateau WP. What a special team that Ema and the cold Iron Wolf have made, at least here in Normal. I never would have guessed the Cold Mage would provide such wonderful support to a ranged attacker. Devak applies his frozen spells so quickly across the battlefield that he is serving as an effective tank, now he is wearing his "Stealth" Splint Mail armor. With the FCR boost he doesn't miss much and it gives Ema ample amounts of time to Plague frozen sitting duck groups of monsters. Its amusing watching their health quickly wither away stuck in the noxious clouds.
As you can see poor Shenk and Sharptooth don't present much of a threat as they're consistantly chilled and Ema dances around applying poison.

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Ema and Devak, Level 39, Arreat Plateau
 
Southpaw8668 said:
Most of Act V was handled rather easily with the poison destroying everything as Devak would slow them down, however once we arrived to WK3 things began to become a bit more challenging. The Death Lords wouldn't slow when Devak blasted them with Frozen Spike and they were somewhat resistant to poison. Still they would drop eventually with a bit more running around them and multiple PJs. Baal's first four waves were easy up to big Lister, who proved to be quite a challenge even after dragging him and his buddies all around the area away from Baal. After Lister was disposed of we did notice the other minions would freeze in place, once they were singled out and Devak could repeatedly blast them with his cold missile combos. Baal and his clone were a bugger for sure, as he seemed to have a pretty high resistance to cold and poison and my LF damage is not all that great at the moment. After a few trips to town for pots and repairing the javelins I remembered the Malice sword I had on switch. OW seemed to really helped to speed up the process. He didn't drop anything useful to the pair. :(
Lister evidently has a lot of blood to lose.
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Ema and Devak, Level 44, Act I
 
kestegs said:
Alright, a little update time! Act 2 has been going surprisingly fast, which is nice for a change.

Started off a little rough with a nasty radament down in the sewers, the poison was really strong and his melee took over half my life the one time I got too close.

A poor picture, but extra strong/might guy here, another tough hitter. The worst though was the fire towers. Got 3 in this one area, and they took a couple minutes to destroy and 3 mana pots each. /p8 is the worst for those!

Things got real rough in the palace cellar with this double horror archer pack. Not sure all the mods, but one was cursed and one was CE. I ended up going around the other side, but the merc still ate it a few times before they dropped.

But I made it to the tombs with no more problems. This was in the second tomb I did. Picture doesn't do it justice though. I popped the door to this room open to find a champ pack of unravelers....Groan. You can see the almost invisible ghostly one behind the dark pillar. I couldn't get good position to tornado, and the merc was fading fast, so I decided to head in the room to get a better angle. Bad choice. The merc ate it, and instead of running away I decided to head further into the room. Still not sure why! Came across a massive pack of scarabs and a boss pack of Vampires. Oh no. I was in a corner with no merc and millions of charged bolts going everywhere, I thought this could easily be it for me. Fortunately the scarabs went down quick and with a recast of cyclone armor I was able to make it back out of the room. Think that was a 4 Rejuv room by the time it was all done, merc died a few more times trying to get those sticking unravelers. And my reward? Thanks...

Little did I know what lay ahead though. Did one more tomb that went smoothly and then was clearing the next and came up to this. As I approached I though "hmmmm...that's a lot of skeletons..." Wait, is that another boss I see? Ah yes, that would be 2 unraveler bosses! Oh, but wait, could that possibly be a 3rd unraveler boss? Yup! None other than Puke Feast himself! The merc dropped quickly every time he got near them, and I was dropping even quicker if he wasn't around to tank those unholy bolts and hords of raised and re-raised skellies. I think he died 3 times before I got that last shot. I decided to try from the other side, as the room circled around to the entrance and there should be a lot less skellies in that direction. With some luring of the skellies away we ended up here. No, that's not a champ pack :p I really just had to hope that I could nail them from half a screen away with tornadoes, because getting close was suicide. With another couple merc resurrections and many many pots later I finally got one of them to drop, and the other 2 were then much easier. In total I think it was 8 merc resurrections and 7 full juves. I felt compelled to SS the wreckage, and lack of worthwhile loot those jerks left behind.

I've got 3 more tombs to clear before I'm through this awful place, but that will have to wait for tomorrow.

Code:
Table of Heroes:
Forum Name        Class                   Char Name  LVL  ACT  Area
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jiansonz          Summon Necromancer      Mago       64   A4(NM) Pandemonium fortress
japanzaman        Martial Assassin        ??????     ??   A3[NM] Lower Kurast
kestegs           Elemental Druid         Rhett      59   A2(NM) Tombs
Pb_pal            Shift Druid             Yau        58   A2[NM] Canyon
felixbavaria      Shadow Assassin         Cisa       48   A1(NM) Rogue encampment
Southpaw8668      Javalein Amazon         Ema        44   A1[NM] Rogue encampment
Dazliare          Fire Sorc               Quelana    ??   A3     Jungle
felixbavaria      Bow Amazon              Paige      21   A2     Lut Gholein
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
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
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

@Southpaw8668 Minions of destruction have 95% poison and 50% cold resists in all difficulties. Maybe some LR charges next time would help!
 
Dazliare said:
Time for a proper update!

Quelana is level 39, in the early stages of act 5. I must say that after playing the skill-less and passive aggressive tournaments, it's nice to have a character with good damage. Level 23 fireball decimates just about everything.

I really haven't done a real update since act I, so this will be a bit long.

I really don't enjoy act 1 normal all that much. Your build can't do anything yet, and rares can't quite spawn with decent mods. You can get some decent shields during this time, but especially with the no MF rule, Act 1 was mostly an exercise in not rushing too much. Once I made it to Andariel, she went down without a fuss (yay -50 res).

Moving on to act 2, and we start to have a little more fun. I gambled boots looking for a dual res pair, and found perhaps the most useless rare I've ever seen:
View attachment 1327

I ended up with a pair with fire res, run/walk, and extra gold. Not too shabby. Moving on to circlets. This thing makes me very happy, and boosts pratham's damage output significantly. Even now in A5, he still uses it:
View attachment 1328

The rest of act 2 was pretty uneventful, though this has been the most fun character to take through the arcane sanctuary. The tombs were quite easy as well, with fireballs one-shotting entire packs of burning dead. I got the "enemies attack you" bug in the last time, and ended up tanking Duriel, but he went down without much effort. Moving on to act 3!

Act 3 has been the most fun so far (except maybe act 5). Fireball just decimates the fetishes, and with all the rivers, it makes it easy to stay out of harm's way while shooting fireballs. Overall, the entire act was almost trivial. The temples yielded no stair traps, and Travincal was easy. Here's a stylish item we found in the jungle:

View attachment 1329

I think I'm going to quite like using hydra as a main attack. It's wonderful for big enemies who don't like moving much. The damage output isn't great yet, but the utility more than makes up for it. Pratham and I took zero damage for the Mephisto fight:

View attachment 1331

Act 4 was the first sign of challenge. Venom lords with 70 fire resist are a little scary! Otherwise, the act was uneventful, though I must admit that clearing the Chaos Sanctuary quickly was wonderful. For comparison, the Chaos Sanctuary in Nightmare on my skill-less barbarian (Vladimir) took nearly 2 hours. Diablo melted Pratham, and I decided to just play chicken, running around in circles, and keeping the big man surrounded with Hydras (Hydrae?). Easy peasy.

Act 5 thus far has been a great time, with Hydra starting to gain strength. One scary situation in Abaddon with hell lords, but not a big deal. An interesting find though! Could be useful in the future, but I highly doubt it. I vendored it :p

View attachment 1332

Quelana, the Hydra Summoning Enchantress - level 39. Act V Awaits...
 
jiansonz said:
@Dazliare: That's a very nice merc circlet.



Well, the Malice Iron Golem was badly needed. Look here:

MagoNM17%20start%20Act%20IV_zpsu2sqrvu7.jpg


As you can see from the mage corpses a bit out in the open, I had to pull back here and start over the army building. First Doom Knight got Revived, second corpse was raised as the mage you can see (poison shooter, NOT what I wanted...). I slowly built up the army, and once it got going, clearing the first areas was pretty easy.

Example of the last part of a big fight in the City:
MagoNM18%20City%20fight_zpsifqhctw3.jpg


I have many Revives because I found out that this gave me the best chance to have enough melee critters to surround the bats, so they wouldn't flee to the map edge and deny me their drops.

The River of Flame start was even harder than on the Steppes. I had to start over the army building twice, and had to flee to the little peninsula to the left (that I had cleared earlier). It's from this situation I eventually got going this time:
MagoNM19%20RoF%20start_zps7nkgyutm.jpg


Still the same Malice golem, a Revived Pit Lord, a boss Strangler, a boss Pit Lord and a minion. Good thing the IG has very high lightning resist.

I thought I was going to lose most of the mages here, but it wasn't so bad:
MagoNM20%20Heph_zpsmmxdenrl.jpg


I think those bulky Grotesques soaked up most of the bolts aimed in the direction of my artillery.

I thought this character would maybe be strong enough to take on the Infector's gang head-on:
MagoNM21%20Infector_zpsfj913oit.jpg


But the combo of poison immunity and very high fire resist proved to be too strong a defense for them, and once my revives started to time out, I had to flee. In fact, I was stubborn and waited too long and nearly all mages died. Had to flee from there, collect some reinforcements from the Vizier's wing and return:
MagoNM22%20Infector%20rematch_zpsme4gddbf.jpg


And yes, whip out my damn 'Steel' flail again! I suppose it will never get obsolete...
(also, I just HAD to get 4 poison shooters out of 11 mages, didn't I...)

Diablo seemed to have a thing for Ajheed:
MagoNM23%20diablo_zps7zvxleau.jpg


He trapped Mago once also, but I had put the TP staff on switch, so no danger.

First session in Act V was easy, as the game provides free corpses, and the Foul Crows and imps on the Foothills could hardly kill any of my troops.

I was a bit wary in the Crystalline Passage beginning, but was greeted by the easy-to-kill Abominables and could get going (they make great Revives).

I still can't control my army much. I couldn't be bothered trying to get them to kill enemies over land instead of lava/river in several areas:
MagoNM24%20couldnt%20be%20arsed_zpsnnpt3loq.jpg


That would have been very tedious, and probably not much more succesful either.

Later in that area, an incarnation of a familiar face showed up:
MagoNM25%20shes%20back_zpscm4h8v2x.jpg


Recent finds:
* A third Io rune, which allowed me to cube a Lum, and make 'Lionheart' in an Ancient Armor (could have chosen a more lightweight Cuirass but I went with the AA because it looks more stylish).
* Some better resist/life charms
* 30% Nagelring (wrong tourney for that!)
* Anya reward was a better +1 Necro head than I had, because it had some poison resist and damage-to-mana that the old one didn't.
* Crimson Jewel of Hope (+17 life). Thinking about socketing my wand (hoping for 2 sockets) and put this jewel there.


Destroyer Mago the Golemancing Lord of Mages and Ajheed the Fire Mage, level 71, NM Nihlathak's Temple next
 
japanzaman said:
Highheels is now about to plunge into the river of flame, sitting at level 58. Things have gotten more dangerous in Act 4, as monster life is much higher. Playing on P1 the entire way has its advantages early on, but the lack of drops and runes is starting to catch up with this character. There's no way realistically she makes it through hell unless something changes dramatically between now and Hell. Goal is to make it through Nightmare and see how far she can make it.
 
Southpaw8668 said:
Ema and Devak have found their way to Inner Cloister with pretty much smooth sailing and have managed to find a decent helm for Devak to boost his resist all. Plague Javelin remains solid for killing speed at this point in NM as we slowly build our secondary Lightning Fury attack that will become much more relied upon in the battle against Andy and Act IV. Also decided to create another "Stealth" with Plate Mail for Ema, making her even quicker on her feet.

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Ema and Devak, Level 47, Inner Cloister WP
 
Norcim105 said:
Hey everyone! It's been a long time since I've posted but I started lurking around again recently and decided it was time to break the D2 out again.

Introducing Bones, the Poison & Bone, all Energy necromancer. I thought it would be a neat idea to play him as if he himself had been reanimated. As such, he is not allowed to put points into Vitality because who needs Vitality when you've already been dead. This meant specializing in one of the other three stats. Necro specific gear is super light on Strenth and Dexterity, and life as a Bonemancer can get one addicted to the blues. Also, style!

Side note, but I really like the no MF restriction for this tournament! It suits my style of play, plus I've always felt that the game was a grind when you are trying to have the merc kill everything to maximize MF. I like that Bones will be able to focus solely on survival and damage.

My plan is to play Bones as a total glass cannon, able to dish out the pain but also unable to withstand it. I also don't get much play time these days, so I wanted a build that would start out a little quicker and easier since it takes me a while to get through the game and I didn't want to spend the time I have playing slogging through. I decided to go with a Fire rouge for this same reason, as it would make life much easier on the way to level 18 and Bone Spear. Also, I envisioned having a great time for the two of us blasting things from behind the safety of walls and prisons. Finally, Bones will only put one point into Corpse Explosion because I find it OP and boring. I will be using it as a method of corpse disposal only.

Bones used a scimitar socketed with chipped sapphire and ruby to get through the early game. Kyoko the fire rouge was hired as soon as possible. Bones was actually able to make a cap with two Jewels of Envy around the Stony Field, which dramatically boosted his killing power. Bones put his first point into Bone Armor and then saved the rest, minus prerequisites points. The plan is to start boosting Bone Wall at 12 to improve the armor and get Bone Spear damage up. Bones went melee until 18 when he started to used spear almost exclusively. Putting all the points into energy actually made it tolerable to use it as long as I was getting good firing angles to hit multiple baddies at once. I played Bones as a tank for most of Act 1, as Bone Armor was able to absorb almost all of the damage. There isn't a ton of elemantal damage getting thrown around early, so this worked out well. At 18 I gave the cap of envy to Kyoko and put on a rubied cap. I had a great time against Griswold as I tanked him by re-casting bone armor every few seconds. The rest of the act was no problem. Andy went down real easy. I just ran around the pond casting spears and she eventually fell. I did have to go to town to pre-buff with stamina pots once because with no points in Vitality I ran out pretty quick. This is the first time I've ever really had that as a problem in D2.

Shopped for over an hour at Drognan for wands. I bought a +2 and +3 Bone Spear wands. Put both Tirs I had into the +2 one which meant I could be much more liberal with spear, which made Act2 a lot of fun. I thought about doing this with the +3 one but I didn't want to have to burn a Hel rune later on it if I get the runes to make White. My ultimate end game armor is probably Lionheart, so I want to make sure I have a Hel available if that becomes an option. Bought a 2 socket skull cap and put in a regular amethyst and a flawed ruby. This gave me enougth strength to equip a 3soc breast plate, which promptly got flawed rubies. Bones will probably hover right around 30 strenth for most of the game I'm thinking. Act 2 was pretty uneventful. The Arcane Sanctuary was some of the most fun I've had in a while. CE got used for the first time in the tombs, but it was only needed when facing boss and champ packs of Unravelers. Unravelers were one of the few enemies that could hurt Bones, and with such a small life pool it was a little unnerving at times. I can't exactly remember but I had Unravelers in probably 5 of the tombs. I was worried about the Duriel fight, but eventually I was able to get him hemmed in with Prisons. The ground in Duriel's chamber actually played against him for once, as he ended up just bouncing around within some prisons but not actually attacking them! Held down right click and drank some mana pots and he went down with no fuss.

A Stealth breastplate was made for Kyoko in the jungles. The FRW was really helpful. No stair traps in any of the temples, which was really nice. I have a feeling that the temples in NM may be the end of Bones. Small life pool could mean instant death if I get a bad spawn. I don't have any other notes from Act 3 other than the Council had to be lured out one at a time as the hydras were able to hurt Bones. Meph got moat parked and blasted from a safe distance.
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I made a Zephyr in the Plains of the Damned for Kyoko. The first Amn was found and used to punch holes into Bones's shield, playing the odds and getting 2 sockets. I had one perfect diamond ready to go because I can't read and thought I needed it to upgrade my belt... This maxed out resistances at the start of the River of Flame. Izual took a while but wasn't a problem.
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Hephaesto had Conviction. No issues though, prisoned him in with Kyoko so that he would target her and not move. I felt bad, but she only needed 2 super healers to tank him while we fired away. Was really hoping for a P. Ameythst from the Hellforge so I could upgrade my belt and have more that 2 rows before the Diablo fight. No amethyst, but another P. Diamond that went into the shield. The stacked resistance means I can move off some other resistance gear to try to boost life. Ral was the rune from Hellforge. Bought a +2BS wand from Jemali with Confuse charges on it. I'm not super familiar with Confuse but it is really nice to get a crowd control curse without sacrificing crucial.
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Extra Fast Ventar's pack gave me some trouble. I had the map where I was locked in the corner so I can't run away when they spawn. Threw up a TP, put down a bunch of bone walls, and readied confuse. I thought I might be able to down a few of them before I had to TP out and run back from the WP. I bailed on that plan when Kyoko and the walls were vaproized right away. After coming back from the WP I was able to string them out and take them down one at a time. Ventar by himself was no trouble once he got prisoned in with Kyoko.
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I have been nervous about the Diablo fight all game, as Bones has a really low life total. The fight started out OK, with me launching a spear or two and then re-positioning as Diablo tried to hose me. I was whitling him down a bit at a time when he finally fried Kyoko. I had set up a TP before the fight and I figured I'd pop through for a resurrection and to restock pots when I realized I was walking and Diablo was charging after me. I had run of of stamina! I took one melee shot from Diablo which killed the bone armor, but I was able to get through the portal without deeding. I came back from the WP and continued the fight as before. Many pots later I was victorious! I realized after the fight that I really should have a TP staff on switch. I got fortunate that I never got prisoned, but I will need to be more prepared moving forward.
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Bones's journey through Act5 was also pretty unevenful. Bone spear takes everything down really fast, and suprisingly bone prison seems to be much more robust with a few points into it even though its life total really hasn't changed much. Still collapses instantly against LE bosses, which is too bad because this is one of the best uses for it. I'm looking forward to using prison and wall much more tactically in NM as they have enough life to hold things up. I found another Amn, so I could make an Edge bow for Kyoko if I can find a decent base. Does anyone know if thorns works with wall and prison? I suspect not, but it'd be something cool to play around with. Kyoko's damage with the Zephyr bow is starting to lack, so an upgrade for her is in order. Bones nearly suicided himself in the Frozen River because I had completely forgot about the Blood Mana curse that witches can cast! I realize I've never really played a character with way more mana than life so I've never really had to deal with this curse. It wasn't a huge deal once I figured out what it was doing. Bones was able to drink a healing pot and blast away without his life really moving. I will have to be more careful with this moving forward though. Bones was finally able to upgrade his belt here. So nice to have 4 rows of pots now.
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An Edge Edge bow was made after clearing Ancients Way. 9 str ring there also. A few circles around the summit and I lost everyone but the thrower. My bone armor was able to tank him while Kyoko and Bones blasted away, and he dropped after only taking one of the armors down. Next up was the leaper, who got the same treatment but didn't take any of the armor down. I was more careful with the whirler so I didn't try to tank him. I did take a partial whirl, but the armor held up. All in all, a pretty easy fight.

WSK was no big deal. Waves were pretty easy with wall and prison keeping things pretty contained. Wave 3 hydras melted the walls instantly and had Bones scrambling around trying to contain the situation. I was able to separate the council members into small groups with strategic walls while running, and then prisoning them in. I used a few Confuse charges on Wave 4 which grouped them all together nicely. They went down with no fuss. I was worried about Lister and his crew, but after pulling them back to the entrance to the Throne room I dropped about 20 prisons on everyone and they just sat there. Spammed BS and recast prisons every so often. This was one of the easiest fights I've had. The huge mana pool meant I only had to use 2 mana pots to take the all out.
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As soon as I entered the Worldstone I got hit with the freaking blood mana curse again. I had completely forgotten that Baal can cast this, and this curse has been by far the most damaging thing Bones has encountered so far. I TPed into town and removed it. I was able to engage Baal from the very edge of the screen, and he seemed pretty tame way out there. I got hit with the blood mana curse a few more times, but I was able to drink a super healer and spam BS and still recover life. Fight didn't take very long.
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Bones was able to complete a +100 life breastplate right at the end of the Cow Level. I had been running around with 3 socket breastplate with 2 flawless rubies in it since the Diablo fight. I really wanted to put a perfect ruby in the last slot to get that nice +100 number, but I couldn't get rubies to drop. Cows dropped me a regular ruby right near the end, which I was able to use to cube the last flawless ruby.

Updated will probably come every Act now. I was worried I would deed in Normal with Bones, so I held off on posting about him until he was a Destroyer.

Normal is complete. Full game clear at P8. Bones the Bonemance, level 49 with Kyoko the fire rouge.

Edit: Not a ton of S/Us, as is to be expected. Some notables:
Ravenclaw
Goblin Toes
Crushflange

Skills/Stats read outs:
Name: Bones
Class: Necromancer
Experience: 43181246
Level: 49

Naked/Gear
Strength: 15/33
Dexterity: 25/26
Vitality: 15/15
Energy: 270/270
HP: 137/354
Mana: 611/635
Stamina: 127/127
Defense: 6/171
AR: 80/85

Fire: 118/78/18
Cold: 117/77/17
Lightning: 121/81/21
Poison: 118/78/18

MF: 0 Block: 3
GF: 109
FR/W: 0
FHR: 8
IAS: 0
FCR: 0

Amplify Damage: 0/0
Dim Vision: 0/0
Weaken: 0/0
Iron Maiden: 0/0
Terror: 0/0
Confuse: 0/0
Life Tap: 0/0
Attract: 0/0
Decrepify: 0/0
Lower Resist: 0/0

Teeth: 1/1
Bone Armor: 1/1
Poison Dagger: 0/0
Corpse Explosion: 1/1
Bone Wall: 12/12
Poison Explosion: 0/0
Bone Spear: 20/25
Bone Prison: 14/14
Poison Nova: 0/0
Bone Spirit: 3/3

Skeleton Mastery: 0/0
Raise Skeleton: 0/0
Clay Golem: 0/0
Golem Mastery: 0/1
Raise Skeletal Mage: 0/0
Blood Golem: 0/0
Summon Resist: 0/0
Iron Golem: 0/0
Fire Golem: 0/0
Revive: 0/0

Gear readouts:
Plague Clasp
Amulet
Required Level: 13
Fingerprint: 0xdf28151a
Item Level: 22
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+13 to Life
Cold Resist +12%
Lightning Resist +29%
Fire Resist +14%
Damage Reduced by 1

Grim Clutches
Chain Gloves
Defense: 8
Durability: 16 of 16
Required Level: 13
Required Strength: 25
Fingerprint: 0x92fe51cb
Item Level: 26
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to Strength
+1 to Dexterity
Cold Resist +11%
Fire Resist +26%
Poison Resist +6%
Repairs 1 Durability in 33 Seconds

Circlet of the Colossus
Circlet
Defense: 26
Durability: 32 of 35
Required Level: 22
Fingerprint: 0x3ddc1fd1
Item Level: 30
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+50 to Life

Spirit Buckle
Sharkskin Belt
Defense: 36
Durability: 7 of 14
Required Level: 30
Required Strength: 20
Fingerprint: 0x86771340
Item Level: 17
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+3 to Strength
Cold Resist +18%
Lightning Resist +15%
Poison Resist +16%
Poison Length Reduced by 25%
Attacker Takes Damage of 1
Required Level +5

Corpse Stalker
Boots
Defense: 4
Durability: 7 of 12
Required Level: 13
Fingerprint: 0xb70e5017
Item Level: 21
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+21% Enhanced Defense
Heal Stamina Plus 50%
Poison Resist +27%
Poison Length Reduced by 25%
73% Extra Gold from Monsters

Gemmed Breast Plate
Breast Plate
Defense: 66
Durability: 32 of 50
Required Level: 18
Required Strength: 30
Fingerprint: 0xec7afe82
Item Level: 31
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+100 to Life
3 Sockets (3 used)
Socketed: Flawless Ruby
Socketed: Flawless Ruby
Socketed: Perfect Ruby

Garnet Ring
Ring
Required Level: 13
Fingerprint: 0x6576a4b0
Item Level: 19
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Fire Resist +23%

Ring of the Ox
Ring
Required Level: 30
Fingerprint: 0xfe514bee
Item Level: 39
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+9 to Strength

Wand of Weaken
Wand
One Hand Damage: 2 - 4
Durability: 15 of 15
Required Level: 12
Fingerprint: 0x2272c4cc
Item Level: 12
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Level 1 Weaken (64/67 Charges)

Bone Shield of Blocking
Bone Shield
Defense: 10
Chance to Block: 30
Durability: 40 of 40
Required Level: 1
Required Strength: 25
Fingerprint: 0x67e0e4f7
Item Level: 21
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+15% Faster Block Rate
10% Increased Chance of Blocking

Drake's Yew Wand of Confusion
Yew Wand
One Hand Damage: 2 - 8
Durability: 15 of 15
Required Level: 24
Fingerprint: 0x99871820
Item Level: 36
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to Bone Spear (Necromancer Only)
+24 to Mana
Level 1 Confuse (64/67 Charges)

Gemmed Gargoyle Head
Gargoyle Head
Defense: 15
Chance to Block: 0
Durability: 11 of 20
Required Level: 18
Required Strength: 20
Fingerprint: 0x5c5ec667
Item Level: 23
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Adds 2 - 7 Poison Damage Over 3 Secs (75 Frames)
+3 to Bone Spear (Necromancer Only)
+1 to Golem Mastery (Necromancer Only)
All Resistances +38
2 Sockets (2 used)
Socketed: Perfect Diamond
Socketed: Perfect Diamond

Mercenary:

Name: Kyoko
Race: Rogue Scout
Type: Fire - Normal
Experience: 11313212
Level: 48
Dead?: false

Naked/Gear
Strength: 92/100
Dexterity: 135/149
HP: 558/558
Defense: 492/580
AR: 1082/1082

Fire: 87/47/-13
Cold: 87/47/-13
Lightning: 87/47/-13
Poison: 117/77/17

Stealth
Breast Plate
TalEth
Defense: 68
Durability: 41 of 50
Required Level: 17
Required Strength: 30
Fingerprint: 0xc2a0ff61
Item Level: 22
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+25% Faster Run/Walk
+25% Faster Cast Rate
+25% Faster Hit Recovery
+6 to Dexterity
Regenerate Mana 15%
+15 Maximum Stamina
Poison Resist +30%
Magic Damage Reduced by 3
2 Sockets (2 used)
Socketed: Tal Rune
Socketed: Eth Rune

Gemmed Superior Helm
Superior Helm
Defense: 20
Durability: 26 of 26
Required Level: 18
Required Strength: 26
Fingerprint: 0x303dc9d7
Item Level: 38
Version: Expansion 1.10+
20% Enhanced Damage
+15 to Maximum Damage
+7% Enhanced Defense
+1 to Mana after each Kill
Increase Maximum Durability 12%
2 Sockets (2 used)
Socketed: Rusty Jewel
Socketed: Aureolic Jewel of Carnage

Edge
Edge Bow
TirTalAmn
Two Hand Damage: 6 - 19
Durability: 18 of 20
Required Level: 25
Required Strength: 25
Required Dexterity: 43
Fingerprint: 0xe9b33850
Item Level: 36
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Level 15 Thorns Aura When Equipped
+35% Increased Attack Speed
+362% Damage to Demons
+280% Damage to Undead
Adds 75 Poison Damage Over 5 Secs (125 Frames)
7% Life stolen per hit
Prevent Monster Heal
All Stats +8
+2 to Mana after each Kill
Reduces all Vendor Prices 15%
3 Sockets (3 used)
Socketed: Tir Rune
Socketed: Tal Rune
Socketed: Amn Rune
 
bladejj said:
Norcim - very interesting idea. I just ran the numbers in a skill planner and the build definitely looks viable. And yes, thorns damage does work with bone walls / prisons (iron maiden does as well but that is not in your wheel house); however, this was nerfed in a recent patch that has serious diminishing returns in NM and hell.

Does anyone know if the magic damage on bone spear and bone spirit is the same type of magic damage as berserk? If so, there aren't many monsters immune to that in the game. Also, have you considered placing some points into poison explosion to help negate monster regeneration later in the game?

If you can manage to make it to the end of NM and buy a Jewelers Armor of the Whale, as well as craft some nice 'blood' gear, you should have a pretty decent life pool.
 
kestegs said:
That's some nice progress everyone!

Love the bonemancer, a favorite build of mine. Thorns or IM does indeed work with prisons /walls. I killed hell durial with only that, took like 10 min. It can be good for things like the act 5 Hell lords and other strong melee guys. The magic damage is just like berserk, so there isn't much immune to you. Outside of a stair trap or maybe gloams I'd say you can get pretty far with careful play. Good luck and welcome back!

I'm also a huge fan of hydra. They're pretty powerful against small packs or single targets, and they make great scouts. I think I guardianed an orb/hydra Sorc in another tourney a while back.
 
Norcim105 said:
bladejj said:
Norcim - very interesting idea. I just ran the numbers in a skill planner and the build definitely looks viable. And yes, thorns damage does work with bone walls / prisons (iron maiden does as well but that is not in your wheel house); however, this was nerfed in a recent patch that has serious diminishing returns in NM and hell.

Does anyone know if the magic damage on bone spear and bone spirit is the same type of magic damage as berserk? If so, there aren't many monsters immune to that in the game. Also, have you considered placing some points into poison explosion to help negate monster regeneration later in the game?

If you can manage to make it to the end of NM and buy a Jewelers Armor of the Whale, as well as craft some nice 'blood' gear, you should have a pretty decent life pool.
That's neat about Thorns working. Without a curse like Amp to cast on monsters I didn't think the Thorns would do much, but its still kind of fun. I have considered putting points into Poison Explosion, but for now I've been able to kill everything pretty quickly so I haven't needed to stop regen yet. In Hell, if I make it that far, this could be nice to have. My plan for now is to max Prison and then Spirit. I should be able to do this by level 68 if I've done my math right (dubious), so I'm not decided on where to go after this yet. I've never really played around with Spirit before and it seems like it will work really well for single, tough enemies like Act bosses. With the gear that I will have, Spirit should do more damage than Spear and the extra mana cost shouldn't be a problem.

If I can make a Lionheart I can shop a nice Plated Belt of the Whale with a resistance on it. The Lionheart should let me move off most of the gears/charms I'm using now to boost strength, so I think I will be able to get better life/resistance with that setup than a Jewelers armor. I'm hoping that I can end NM with ~500 life. Now that I've talked this setup up enough, I am sure that I will be ending NM without the requisite runes to pull this off..

SunsetVista said:
@Norcim105 - welcome back! That was a great read! I had no idea Bone Prison was so good in Normal. And dealing with the blood mana curse... Epic! Good luck in NM and beyond!

I was also surprised at how well prison worked. By the end of Normal the life of each prison was ~70, so they really weren't that strong but monsters would often stay in the prisons without attacking them for a while. All Bones needed was an extra second or two in order to kill most monsters, so this worked out really well. I popped into NM to see what kind of life boost Prison and Wall get, and they are both upwards of 700! At this stage of the game, getting to cast as many of these as I want for a small amount of mana almost feels like cheating (until I prison myself in with something nasty, which has come close to happening with extra fast bosses before. I really need to shop a staff of teleport before moving on).

Also, good luck to everyone else participating! I've really enjoyed reading all of your updates and have picked up some great tips for how you guys manage very tricky/dangerous situations.
 
Southpaw8668 said:
Ema and Devak have made it to Act II and things are definitely getting much more tense. Poison isn't working nearly as well once we started venturing further down in the Catacombs. Everything took much longer with Devak blasting away with his ice bolts and spikes and poison started to lose its luster. Ema's Lightning Fury is still pretty weak and expensive, but that and Malice's OW finally did in Andy. Standing toe to toe with her to get the blood oozing took a lot of my juvies though, no worries we'll make more. The Andy drop was horrible!!! The Topaz was all we kept and this junk Charsi imbued for us sums up how Act I went for us. Utter garbage Charsi, see you in Hell...

1608454502323.png

Ema and Devak, Level 49, Act II start
 
Pb_pal said:
Yau and Ulric set out to take on the false tombs after clearing out the Canyon. With the memory of the CVT NDE fresh in their minds, the duo knew that this trip through the tombs had the potential to be quite challenging. We also knew though, that if we could secure the starting room, we shouldn't have much trouble. Time to find out what awaited us!

The first tomb was a cakewalk, even though we drew Unravellers. Nothing of note happened whatsoever. The second temple gave us this starting setup . We decided to stick it out right there at the corner, even though we were in range of resurrections. We didn't want to make a try at the Unraveller, and end up waking up more monsters, as we didn't know what was around the corner. Yau and Ulric patiently bashed the skellies, killing them mulitple times until they shattered (we have cold dmg from charms). It took a long time, but there was never any danger. This Ghoul Lord boss took quite a while, as he has 80% PR with the Stone Skin mod. We have no solution to PI's yet, so that's something we will have to figure out quite soon. The rest of the tomb was peanuts.

Temple 3. Oh, Temple 3. We got the big open room entrance, our least favourite. It's okay, nothing seems to be coming for us, so let's start moving forward a bit into the room to see what we are dealing with. Skeletons immediately started streaming towards us. Okay that sucks, but not necessarily that bad. Wait a minute, they are moving really fast! Great, they're minions. We tried to make a stand by the stairs, but more skeletons, as well as some beetles, started streaming in from the other side of the room. We were losing ground, and the skeletons we did kill were getting resurrected, so the boss can't be that far away. We had to move. As we ran to the other side of the room, we got a look at who we were dealing with.

11KvMOT.jpg


Okay, now let's play a little game called "Count the Unravellers!". Well if you take a closer look at the screenie, you can see another Unraveller shooting an unholy bolt at us from the southwest hallway. He's the one who's skellies joined us at the door earlier along with the minions. There is another hand poking out from behind a pillar just above the Unraveller boss, so that makes three so far. If you look closely, you'll also notice an unholy bolt streaming down from just behind that unraveller. So based on that you would probably guess 4 total (1 boss, 3 normal), right? Wrong! There was ANOTHER unraveller hiding just behind that last one, who came sprinting into the main room to join his buddies. Add in all their skeletons and the beetles, and the monster density was just insane.

We caught a lucky break and old Wind Rend followed us as we ran by him, which pulled him JUST out of resurrection range of the stairs. So we portal parked a pile of skellies and the 3 Unravellers in the corner, and ran back to the entrance from the WP. This allowed us to kill a pile of skeletons and beetles at the entrance to ease the pressure. We then took a chance, and decided to take out the lone Unraveller in the western hallway.

RWOzgh5.jpg


Wind Rend came back, as you can see in the screenie, but he wasnt an issue. We then led the rest of the skellies down to the entrance and disposed of them. After that it was easy to take out the other normal Unravellers and then get sweet justice on our newest friend. Well that was fun! Not as scary as the CVT entrance, but definitely challenging. After that we picked a hallway and immediately ran into another Unraveller boss (ES/EF this time) accompanied by a Spectral Hit Preserved Dead boss. What is with this place?! At least we had alot of room to work with now, so we led everything away from the Unraveller and took them out easily. The rest of the tomb was cleared out without any more drama.

The rest of the tombs were done easily and quickly. Kaa killed Ulric a couple times, but was not a threat otherwise. We also managed to upgrade our weapon to a Cruel (258%ED) Giant Axe with 7% mana leech, which helped our damage a bit, and all but nullified mana problems. These guys showed up at the door of another temple, but didn't end up being an issue at all. @SunsetVista mentioned he was liking seeing the usefulness of Shockwave. Well, it works as a great casket blocker too!

yoZ1Zhk.jpg


The true tomb was finally cleared and it was time to take on Duriel.

We have been terribly worried about this fight for a very long time. Being chilled is terrible for Yau, and with nowhere to run, it was going to be a very tough fight. So we buffed our duo with thawing potions, and went down to greet Little D. We switched to our newly made 'Steel' Giant Axe for the extra attack speed, and began the fight. Not much to say really, the whole thing looked like this.

mEg9uwp.jpg


We stood behind Ulric and smacked Duriel, letting him bleed out onto the floor. We had to frantically feed Ulric potions though, as Duriel hit him very hard. Duriel actually killed him 8 times during the fight, so after all those resurrections, and probably close to 20 town trips to heal/refill pots, we had him down to low health. Ulric died one last time, and Yau decided to take a stand against the bug. We got him, Duriel was dead! The fight I had been so worried about turned out to be quite anticlimactic. Yau was never in much danger, and the fight only lasted about 10 minutes, even on p8. The drop was useless, but that's okay.


Other notes from A2:
- We drew Unravellers in 6 out of the 7 tombs (including Kaa's and the true tomb).
- No notable finds whatsoever from the tombs. No runes, nothing. Our highest rune is a solitary Io.
- We tried using the socketing recipe on the only plain Maul we found to hopefully make 'Black' for a faster attack with extremely high CB, but sadly it came out with 4 sockets. Oh well, maybe next time!


We decided to press on through the jungles, but not after a little bit of shopping. We scored ourselves a Cruel maul, which gave us a nice increase to our damage output. We also got a Cruel Bastard Sword for Ulric, so he was hitting for more damage too. Out into the jungles we went!

We were progressing nicely, and the monsters were melting away under the power of our new weapons. We were heading into the first offshoot to look for the Spider Cavern, when we ran into a Thorned Hulk boss pack. They were Extra Strong, and the boss was LE. So we ran up and and shockwaved the group and started smacking away. Or so we thought. I must have missed one of the minion hulks with the shockwave, as he zipped around his group and smacked Yau, stunning him. The boss had run around the other side of the group, and Ulric took this chance to start smacking him. Yau must have been sucking up multiple LE bolts because his health dropped faster than I've ever seen. Ulric died, Yau was stun-locked by the frenzied boss and minion and all of a sudden it was over. He went from 975 health with 75% LR to 0 in under a second. I didn't even get to use a purple, although I doubt I could have gotten out of that jam regardless.

So disappointing. The duo was just starting to really pick up steam, but it just goes to show you, you have to be ready at all times. I'm mostly frustrated because this most likely could have been completely avoided had I been more careful with my original Shockwave.

Well I had a great time in this tournament, and I'd like to thank @kestegs again for hosting and for such a cool tourney concept. I think I might have to steal a couple ideas for future tournaments. ;)

I might re-enter with another character, but for now I'm going to polish up my new tourney idea and get that going, as a few people have been asking about it.

Thanks again kestegs, and thanks to everyone for reading about Yau's journey. Good luck to the rest of the participants, I'll be watching! :)


Destroyer Yau the Titan Mauler Bear and Ulric the Barbarian - lvl 60, NM Spider Forest DEEDS
 
bladejj said:
Pb_Pal - sorry about the deeds. Whenever I deed a strong character it usually sticks with NE for quick some time, especially if it was from carelessness, ie. me switching to my full magic find gear and o take on hell Griswold with a no vitality, melee barbarian. Either way, great write up and I look forward to your next tournament.
 
kestegs said:
Act 2 was finished with no other major issues. I had a few nice finds in the last 3 tombs though. Got a Lum, and then this beauty. about a 30% damage increase for the merc, without considering the IAS. Ancient Kaa was his typical pain in the neck self, and required a few merc resurrections.

This Blunderbore was a bit scary, probably could one shot me while cursed I'd guess. I did a little gear rearanging before I did the true tomb, which turned out very nice.

made these three things:
SpiritSuperior Crystal SwordTalThulOrtAmn
One Hand Damage: 5 - 17
Durability: 20 of 20
Required Level: 25
Required Strength: 43
Fingerprint: 0xe7b349b3
Item Level: 48
Version: Expansion 1.10++2 to All Skills
+26% Faster Cast Rate
+55% Faster Hit Recovery
15% Enhanced Damage
Adds 1 - 50 Lightning Damage
Adds 3 - 14 Cold Damage Over 3 Secs (75 Frames)
Adds 75 Poison Damage Over 5 Secs (125 Frames)
7% Life stolen per hit
+250 Defense vs. Missile
+22 to Vitality
+104 to Mana
+3 Magic Absorb4 Sockets (4 used)
Socketed: Tal Rune
Socketed: Thul Rune
Socketed: Ort Rune
Socketed: Amn Rune

----

SmokeBreast PlateNefLum
Defense: 115
Durability: 48 of 50
Required Level: 37
Required Strength: 30
Fingerprint: 0x1abcbc6
Item Level: 33
Version: Expansion 1.10++20% Faster Hit Recovery
+75% Enhanced Defense
+280 Defense vs. Missile
+10 to Energy
All Resistances +50
-1 to Light Radius
Level 6 Weaken (18/18 Charges)2 Sockets (2 used)
Socketed: Nef Rune
Socketed: Lum Rune

----

Artisan's Mask of the WolfMask
Defense: 9
Durability: 20 of 20
Required Level: 26
Required Strength: 23
Fingerprint: 0xff263fab
Item Level: 49
Version: Expansion 1.10++10 to Strength
+58 to Life
Replenish Life +5
Regenerate Mana 19%3 Sockets (3 used)
Socketed: Perfect Amethyst
Socketed: Perfect Skull
Socketed: Perfect Ruby

That gave me all stacked resists, more FCR, +2 skills, and a bit more life and mana. That mask dropped somewhere in the tombs as well, pretty nice find. I considered saving the LUM for lionheart, but I'll likely find another before I find a hel and fal anyway.

The true tomb was dumb, I don't think it even had 3 monster types in it, it was just thick with unravelers/skeletons, the other type were mummies. I don't think my exp bar even moved for the whole thing. It was the perfect end though, as I drew unravelers on all 7 tombs :(

Durial's drop was of course garbage. Not too tough, he got the merc twice I think, but the fight was short. The merc still doesn't have any leech, as I've yet to find a source of it, so he's not a good tank.
 
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:
MagoNM26%20stuff_zpsw5m1au3o.jpg

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.

MagoNM27%20AW%20start_zpsz6stbxya.jpg


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:

MagoNM28%20Foul%20Widows%20pack_zpsffpwo8l3.jpg


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:

MagoNM29%20Ancients_zpsnygm9wwd.jpg


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):

MagoNM30%20WSK%201%20start_zpsxvfzjxi7.jpg


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:
MagoNM31%20OB%20Knights%20doomed_zps3kd4cage.jpg


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:

MagoNM32%20cows%20start_zpsuxy5jt1i.jpg


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:
MagoNM33%20love%20the%20army_zpsr2nwjiqv.jpg


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
 
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