bladejj said:Finished Act III NM. Some nice finds I'll summarize below:
These were helpful Io's, which you'll see why below.
Doesn't beat my Malice Halberd.
A multitude of melee characters would have loved this weapon.
YES!
Alittle cube magic and then....
Lionheart
Breast Plate
'HelLumFal'
Defense: 66
Durability: 33 of 50
Required Strength: 26
Required Level: 41
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 37
Fingerprint: 0x1c3af82b
+25 to Strength
+10 to Energy
+15 to Dexterity
+20 to Vitality
+50 to Life
+20% Enhanced Damage
All Resistances +30
Requirements -15%
Socketed (3: 3 used)
With this I was able to change my gear significantly. I moved out 6 inventory spots worth of strength charms (which can used for live and mana now) but I lost +1 skills, cannot be frozen and magic damage reduction on the Spirit Shroud. I am going on crafting spree shortly and hopefully my gear will improve more.
Element the all energy, lightning sorceress, level 64, with Ahsab the Prayer Guard, Act 4 NM
[2015] The Committed Tournament [by kestegs]
- Thread starter Grisu
- Start date
bladejj said:I typically don't post updates "mid" act, but this was just unbelievable (the memory staff was dropped to equip the hammer).
The lighting is a little weird, but here is it. Plus I have the more difficult of the two runes needed to upgrade. I've already used 2 Lum runes (one found, one cubed) on the Memory Staff and Lionheart Armor and don't have any more to spare, so the upgrade will have to wait. I actually just made Treachury for my mercenary so I plan on dropping in a Shael (to hit the 65% breakpoint) and the other two will probably be Amns for essential life steal. Those coupled with his circlet of life steal (6%) should keep him alive given my lack of decent crowd control.
Hone Sundan
Yari
Two-Hand Damage: 101 to 205
Durability: 28 of 28
Required Strength: 101
Required Level: 37
Spear Class - Normal Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 60
Fingerprint: 0xce3536b5
+180% Enhanced Damage
+20 to Minimum Damage
+40 to Maximum Damage
45% Chance of Crushing Blow
Repairs 1 durability in 10 seconds
Socketed (3: 0 used)
Edit: Unbelievable....just found this literally 6 minutes after the post above.
Edit #2. Thank you Lord De Seis. If I get my strength up to 55 and find some other pieces of Tal's set, we will have matching headpeices.
bladejj said:
kestegs said:
OldSoldier said:
kestegs said:
OldSoldier said:Thanks for the clarification kestegs. I wonder if the Valkyrie will poof without a hard point in the skill. I guess it is worth the runes to find out. Sharon's horsepower is pretty low, and a couple of additional skills will help. Of course, her resistances are terrible...
Enough about Sharon, I have another character to introduce. I started to think about doing a titan werewolf a couple of weeks ago and since in tournaments I normally choose for caster type characters to stay out of the fray, I thought I'd break the mold and go with a melee character. So let me introduce Whitefang, the all-strength werewolf. He is committed to using an act III cold mercenary to assist in his travels. So let's post up some pictures of his journey thus far.
He started the quest to win his love's hand with a simple club and buckler but before long had acquired a scepter which hit a bit harder. Coldcrow was a bit of a challenge with her chilling effect, but after she got separated from her comrades, she went down.
Here is how I "dismissed" the bow mercenary. You can see that by this point Whitefang was fighting in his wolf state, and had access to Feral Rage, which I've never used before. It is a very cool skill which has been the workhorse skill so far. This stairs trap would have been real trouble without the life leech from Feral Rage.
Any Ghostly type champion was difficult due to the fact that my attack speed is greatly reduced in wolf form when chilled. Mental note for later I suppose. I tried to keep this guy away from me by fighting in doorways but my placement wasn't always perfect.
Andariel required no special treatment. I walked straight to her and raged away. Radament got the same treatment.
Act I was pretty slow, and so was Act II, at least until I got the Horadric Cube. At that point I was waiting for a Tir rune to make a Steel Large Axe and upgrade my damage from the slow junk I was using (I had a level 4 Werewolf skill and no IAS - Ugh). I was able to cube a Tir from Elds before I found one, made the Steel, and shortly thereafter was able to cube a savage Lochaber axe with 30% IAS, which is my current weapon. It works really nice at this point and the Steel Large Axe is still on switch for when I want to stop monster regeneration (like with champions).
Here's a situation that would have been deeds for sure without Feral Rage. If I was careful about attacking leechable monsters every few targets, the life bulb stayed pretty full. A mana potion to keep the rage going and a red now and again were all that were necessary to walk away from this.
I employed a similar tactic in this room as well, though it was pretty dicey for a while. I ran in searching for unravelers and stirred up a hornet's nest and got trapped. I figured it would be a good ending shot if I died. I can't leap out like a barbarian or teleport out like a sorceress.
This is in the same room about halfway through the battle. I switched from skeleton to beetle to skeleton to gorebelly to keep the leech stable. If I'd killed all the leechables first, it would have been game over.
Here is the same shot after breaking free on one side and going to hunt down the unravelers. You can see one by the sparkly. I did three false tombs after I killed Duriel, in case you're wondering about the life/mana totals. I needed to mule to ATMA.
That was the craziest mob I've ever gotten out of without being either a barb or a sorc. I am guessing that tactic won't work well in NM or Hell. Looks cool though.
Duriel dropped a Manald Heal, a 7% Mana Leech version and my days of drinking blues are about over for now. The +20 life is more than doubled too. You can probably guess my tactic for fighting Duriel - stand toe to toe and let Feral Rage keep the life bulb full, which it did.
Act III was uneventful, and Whitefang wasted to no time getting his newfound Iron Wolf Ajheed into the mix. For the most part Mephisto concentrated on my Feral Raged Druid but twice he was kind enough to throw an ice ball of doom at Ajheed, killing him before I could kill him. His drop was all rares and a low rune.
Whitefang, level 32 Titan Wolf, Pandemonium Fortress
OldSoldier said:I made the Peace RW armor and tried it out. The valk did poof but it was pretty useful in many situations like this one.
Then I bumped up against some cold enchanted infidels in the crystalline passageway and once they killed the merc they got a lucky swipe on Sharon and she was slower than they were and I was slower on the rejuvs than I needed to be. The infidel killed me on the third jab. Argh. I guess I'm rustier at this game than I thought.
RIP Sharon, level 69 Bowazon in the Crystalline Passageway
Adam Vrána said:Sorry about the deeds to all, really feel for you guysHaven´t been here for a long time as I had really brutal hard work weeks recently and all this happens...
Yajirushi managed to finish Act II, slay Duriel and clear all the false tombs. In one of them she found a fancy rare amulet (35% MF!!!) but she better sold it for a good amount of gold. On the way East, her and her companion meditated. When leaving the deck, Yajirushi sniffed something really nasty. She has seen nothing, though. Only Meshif, who´s face was looking uncommonly red. Was he blushing?
YAJIRUSHI - Pure Dexterity Bow Assasin - Level 28, Kurast Docks
kestegs said:
OldSoldier said:
Pb_pal said:@OldSoldier - Sorry about the loss, I will miss Sharon's updates. Best of luck however with Whitefang!
@kestegs - Wow, sweet drop by Diablo! Good luck in the final act!
jiansonz said:
kestegs said:
kestegs said:Alright, another update, because I may forget this stuff if I don't do it now...
Act 5 started out with a bad roll, and I got javelin cats and burning archers in the foothills. Both have very low life though, so at least they go down quick if you can safely get close enough. Got a nice armor there as well, although he can't use it yet due to needing his current one.
Merc is just hanging back doing something while I do all the dirty work here . Shenk was a little rough with his conviction aura.
Got more spear cats in the frigid highlands, yay! Interesting drop I tried to use it later, but my AR was way to low to hit anything enough to even keep them poisoned. (pus spitter)
Pit or Acheron was actually not too bad, only bad monster was the witches (life tap curse ones). This was a little scary
Oh but wait, just when I thought the coast was clear there were 3 champ Blood lords guarding the chest. Groaaaan. At this point I had built up a ridiculous amount of juves from the previous area and so I was able to get them down, took about 3 full juves and some healers for each one. I think I had 25+ juves before them.
The plateau was really easy, with boars, light mages, and demon tricksters. The pit area was simple as well, it had lords in it, but no bosses or champs of them. Thresh was fairly easy. (Holy shock aura)
Going down to the crystal passage there was only one thing to worry about: Lords. Only took a very short amount of time to figure out I had them, and I immediately had a boss pack. With good placement and twister spammage he could handle a couple minions at a time without too much trouble. Almost all of the damage to them comes from my hurricane, the merc does almost no elemental damage. And here's the boss. I tries briefly to get him, but after 4 juves a dead merc and an NDE it was clear that wasn't going to happen. So he got parked by the entrance.
I also got snakes. Yay for snakes! They packed quite a punch and there were some close calls with the 2 boss packs I found. Merc is tanking 4 lords pretty well here. Got another bad mod lord boss. He was also parked. There was also a champ pack of lords guarding the passage entrance. I killed one of them, but at that point my once robust belt was looking very thin with only 3 full juves left in it. I might have been able to full clear the area if I had loaded my whole stash with juves before the session, but even then I don't know. I didn't like it, but I had to end the session there. I now have to make a crazy long trek from the Wp to the glacial trail or crystalline passage for my next session, but I had no choice. I'm not so sure about the crystalline passage either, I think I may save that for later. much later.
OldSoldier said:
jiansonz said:Mago the Summoner has made it through the jungle. Not much exciting to report, really. Those Flesh Beasts at the start of the act was a great gift to get an army started, then it pretty much rolled along nicely. I was pleased I could bring a good number of Revives with me to the Sszark fight:
The harder they hit, the faster they fall to Thorns (unless they are PI).
I drew Gloams in the Great Marsh. Not as bad as I had feared, because my army is good at tying them up in melee. Plus lightning is the one element I have good protection against.
Lower Kurast had two types of enemies that flee, so we had to do a lot of chasing there.
I do not fear the temples as much as usual (knock on wood) because Revives provide such great protection. Snakes always have the potential to mess things up, though.
Not sure what I will do about multiple zakarum priest packs. We kill slowly, have no way to blind them and I have only one castable minion. I suppose I can make an Iron Golem from a Knockback weapon to try to separate them. We'll see.
Conqueror Mago the Golemancing Lord of Mages and Ajheed the Fire Mage, level 82, Hell Kurast Bazaar next
The cursing brother of Mago has completed the first act. He's found a green and a gold that have both been useful: Arctic Furs and The Gnasher. The Gnasher gives him enough STR to hold a Small Shield. Dim Vision has been maximally pumped - it now has a duration of over half a minute. He tanked Andariel with crappy blocking but with 268(!) life.
Geezer the Curses Necro and Blaise the Fire Rogue, level 20, Lut Gholein.
OldSoldier said:Whitefang tackled the forces of Hell by acting as a tank versus Izual. His Feral Rage was greater than Izual.
He acted as a tank versus Hephasto as well. The aura just meant that he got hit every time. He still swung much faster than Hephasto with his Lochaber Axe of 30% IAS-whatever-the-heck-it-is, so the leech was greater than Hephasto. I think we had to use a couple of reds due to the Spectral Hit, which adds cold damage on some swings. That really puts the hurt on Whitefang and it is his Achilles heel for sure. Must... find... CBF...
My fire and lightning resists were just barely out of the single digits when facing Infector of Souls. He nearly melted Whitefang twice and it kind of scared me to face Diablo with such poor resists. During the Infector fight, we had to portal out and return via the waypoint twice. Eventually we prevailed. There was a nice combat shrine right at the entrance to the Chaos Sanctuary that I abused each time as well.
Diablo himself was a very entertaining fight. I hadn't been able to make any blood gloves yet since I didn't have any perfect rubies made, and I was still using the 10 to 99 damage savage polearm I had made right after getting the cube, so it was a slow fight, and combining poor damage, about a 60% chance to hit, bad resists, and a merc that ran around a lot and got pummeled often by Diablo's spells, I was pretty pumped that we made it past him. His drop was crap.
Moving on to act V, Frozenstein and buddies were not easy since they were also cold enchanted. In fact pretty much all of act V saw Whitefang chilled to the bone and moving at half speed. Half speed means less leech, less damage, and more danger. Plus, the monsters started to get harder to hit here. Whitefang's base AR (remember he is all Strength) is just a shade under 200 I think. It is multiplied nicely by the AR bonuses on werewolf and the attack skills but multiplying a small base number yields trouble. I have been putting points in Werewolf because the 15% AR boost is more than Fury or Feral Rage. So I'm sacrificing raw damage output for chance to hit. I found an Iron (+76 AR) grand charm that raises my chance to hit by about 5%! I need to find a good rare ring or two with some base AR or dexterity on it.
Fire boars were easy peasy, especially when they can't mob me like in this walkway over the lava.
The Icy Cellar had a nice stair trap with a few cold enchanted monsters. Ugh I hate those guys!
The Ancients were FAR easier than the cold areas. I could tank them all, but I did run around a bit to separate them so it was always a 2 on 1 scenario.
I couldn't handle more than two minions of destruction at a time but eventually I got myself backed into a wall so that their knockback wouldn't mess up my swinging range (which seems a bit buggy, especially with Fury) and they went down OK.
Baal wasn't too hard. Whitefang didn't have any slow, and he missed Baal about 20 times in a row once (I mean come on, maybe I am 50% CTH but really???) but he had found a 2 os Giant Axe, which swings at 9 fpa for Feral Rage and 7 fpa for Fury (same as the lochaber axe) with a Steel RW in it, which gives +50 AR and 50% OW. It is a good weapon at this stage of the game for ole Whitefang. Every time Baal thought he would be cute and put up some appendages, Whitefang would target them since they are far easier to hit and provide great leech. They were basically purple potions.
A cow runner this guy is not. Good thing Ajheed froze many cows. The Cow King was on us almost before we explored, and he was pretty dangerous but he went down and we cleared the level to the tune of a single Eth rune.
Whitefang, level 48 Titan Wolf, NM Rogue Camp
OldSoldier said:The action in the preceding update happened a few days ago. Whitefang has ventured into NM with his trusty Lochaber Axe in search of better items. He was able to gamble some better boots and make a pair of blood gloves so he has 7% CB and some additional life. I had been lamenting his lack of CBF though.
And then like Mana from Heaven, this dropped almost right out of the gate. It isn't a Ravenfrost which would satiate much hunger but it is a great start.
Shortly after that, I got this drop. Whitefang had found a +3 Lycanthropy wolf head VERY early on and this meant he could make it a +4 wolf head. Done. The Spirit Shroud's +1 skills also gave him a life boost, and a +1 Druid skills amulet added to the pre-buff joy. He normally sports a "Stealth" RW armor for the FRW, as does Ajheed, albeit for the FCR in his case.
Ghostly champion stair traps and cold enchanted archers aren't so deadly now that we have a source of CBF.
Griswold got tanked. Feral Rage > Griswold, at least here in NM. I'd spent most of my accumulated gold gambling giant axes hoping for something with an open socket (for a Shael) and some ED but it was very dry. I finally found a rare Maul on the ground with a socket in it, so I used one of my two Shael runes in it and upgraded it to a war club, which helped my killing speed by quite a bit. I'd used that Lochaber axe for almost an entire difficulty!
Here is Akara's quest reward ring. Not helpful in the least! I need base AR in a bad way!
I was hoping this drop would be the answer to my AR problems, since I already have an Angelic's ring, but this turned out to be a Tancred amulet. Still on the lookout! Maybe I can shop or find a nice Fool's weapon.
So Whitefang is at the Outer Cloister and raring to go forth and do great things. Ajheed is the group's MVP though; he is great so far. He can freeze enemies endlessly while Whitefang takes huge whiffs of air, missing the enemies' frozen bodies entirely because he can't hit anything. Maybe he should look into getting some glasses or contacts?
Whitefang, level 50 Titan Wolf, NM Outer Cloister
ranagrande said:
