[2015] The Living Colour Tournament [by PSYCHO]

[Grisu]

DISCLAIMER: Migration finished

This tournament has already ended. It was originally started by PSYCHO on Jun 24, 2015. The last post was made Jan 7, 2016.
(link to original thread on diabloii.net) ​

Greetings fellow forumites, another bold tournament to behold!

What is the Living Colour Tournament, you may ask? Very simply put, it is a Hardcore Only tournament that stretches the limits of item finding, rune hunting; space management and undergeared gameplay to the extreme!

The rules are very restrictive, and extremely unique so it is fitting that a lot is left to luck and chance – just like a grand tournament should! A backing story if you shall...

The Zod God has grown tiresome of godly-geared insolent whelps seeking to repetitively destroy his magical chests in Lower Kurast, hunt down his right-hand henchmen like Pindleskin and Mephisto ad nauseum, and then even ruin his future BBQs by invading the free-range ranch known as the 'Moo Moo Farm'.

In order to restore parity to the world, the Zod God has decided to drag down the collective egos of used-to-twinking-travellers by inviting them to a tournament of his own design – a tournament that will make you slam your face into a keyboard harder than getting whacked with an Ethereal Upped Ribcracker, socketed with a Zod Rune.

It's time to set the run-counters to "zomgwtfbbq" mode and make every kill count... It's time to play in Living Colour!

Basic Gameplay

1.A player may enter three characters of any Stat/Skill build into the tournament – all are to be Hardcore and it is strictly self-found/untwinked – Dual-Wield Barbarians must state their intentions to be Dual-Wielders (the reasoning for this appears later);
2.Player characters must stay within ONE Act of each other and all quests are completely optional except for obvious end-of-Act bosses;
3.All Forum Accepted Mods are permitted and welcomed and any /players setting is allowed – including Cheesy Chest-Popping;
4.Re-rolling maps is forbidden, so is revisiting previous Acts and Difficulties (unless it is to complete Imbue quests/Skill resets etc);
5.Full clearing is not required, but is highly suggested as item/run restrictions are deliciously devious;
6.Post-Deeds Muling is strictly forbidden – if it was on your character/in that character's inventory/in-game stash when you died, that's where it stays.

Space Management

1.One 3rd party program (GoMule etc) Stash may be kept to mule off an unlimited amount of items – but none can be put back onto tournament characters once they have been transferred to the stash;
2.All useable items must be kept on the three tournament characters – in other words, you can move items you want to use from character to character (including inventory and in-game stash etc), but no other characters/stashes;
3.Useable items include any physical in-game object such as Runes and Gems, Quest Rewards and alternate gear used for Magic Find or that you have collected for later use;

Gear Restrictions

This is where it gets tricky, but bear with me and I'm open to answer any and all questions that pop up regarding this section of the Rules:

Player Gear Restrictions

1.Tournament characters can not share equipped gear between each other – if you find a nice Rare Amulet on one character and equip it, it can't be equipped on your other characters, they must each find their own Rare Amulet;
2.Charged Items are perfectly fine as long as they are on gear that is appropriate to your gear tier.

Gear Tiers

(White/Socketed/Plain Ethereal/Magic) -> (Rare) -> (Set/Crafted) -> (Runeword/Unique) (Non-Plain Etheral items are legal within each other gear tier)

1.A player must equip all item slots on his/her character with the same tier items before being allowed to change gear over to the next tier;
2.A player's character can not mix tiers of gear together. For example, if they can not equip a Magical Item in all available slots, they can not equip Rare gear to "make up for it";
3.If a player wishes to move onto the next tier of items but hasn't found items to fit all slots in the next gear tier, they are to wear no gear at all in those slots until they find the appropriate tier gear. For example, a Druid has finally equipped Rare items in ALL slots – the player decides that the Druid will advance to the next gear tier but doesn't have any Set/Crafted Amulets or Rings – the Druid can wear all other Set/Crafted items in all other slots, but he can not wear an Amulet or Ring unless he finds/crafts a Set/Crafted Amulet/Ring;
4.A player can not revert back to a lower gear tier if they find "better" items – either they stay in a lower tier indefinitely or move up.

Mercenary Gear

Mercenaries, admitting to a strict Code of Honour, are bound by the same gear tier restrictions as characters. Ergo, Mercenary items can be transferred to the two other character inventories/in-game stashes, but can not be equipped on other character's Mercenaries. Mercenaries must MATCH a player's gear tier or suffer the same consequences (no gear equipped in slots where gear isn't available for the appropriate tier).

Otherwise there are no Mercenary restrictions for type – use any and all that you please, switch them around if you like and replace them with others if need be.

Exceptions to Gear Tier and basic restrictions

Each player may have a dedicated set of Magic Find gear that can be used to run Superuniques and Bosses – this same gear can be shared between all three tournament characters for the strict purpose of those runs only. The Magic Find gear can only be found/created on those three tournament characters using in-game materials found on the three tournament characters – no muling from outside characters or stashes whatsoever!

[--Interesting Aside--]If a player decides to keep a character in the First Gear Tier, they can theoretically use Magic Find gear all the time (like Topaz-socketed Armour/Magical items with Magic Find) as long as they don't upgrade to the Second Gear Tier (Rare). If a player decides to do this, the Magic Find gear can still be used on the other two tournament characters, bypassing the no-shared-gear rule.

Magic Finding and Rune Hunting

1.Magic Find gear is defined as: Any non-Set, non-Unique item with Magic Find that is NOT used as part of a characters standard gear tier set (unless that player has chosen to stay in the first gear tier). For example, a Gull Dagger is considered to be Magic Find gear that can be used by any of your tournament characters to run Act Bosses/Superuniques, even if another character uses it as their main/switch weapon. However a Crafted set of Blood Boots that have plenty of Magic Find and are worn by a Barbarian to quest can not be switched over and used on another tournament character to kill Act Bosses/Superuniques (but if the Blood Boots were put aside specifically for Magic Finding and not for regular questing, they'd be alright – does that make sense?).
2.Act Bosses (Andariel, Duriel, Mephisto, Diablo and Baal) can only be run 50 times each in Normal and Nightmare, and 100 times each in Hell difficulty;
3.Superuniques (Pindleskin, Nihlathak, Bishibosh etc etc), can only be run 25 times each in Normal and Nightmare, and 50 times each in Hell difficulty;
4.The Countess may be run 75 times in Normal and Nightmare and 150 times in Hell difficulty;
5.Although this pertains more to Hell difficulty, "Areas" of any given difficulty may only be run 25 times WITHOUT Magic Find gear (unless said character has decided to stay in first tier gear);
6.Noteable High-TC areas in Hell Difficulty (like Ancient Tunnels and Pits etc), can be run WITH Magic Find gear for a total of 100 times;
7.Gambling for items is limited to 50 gambles PER SLOT, PER CHARACTER (Rings can be gambled 100 times – Dual Wielding Barbarians in particular can gamble 100 weapons instead of 50).


First time Act Boss/Countess Quest kills are not considered part of the overall tally.

How Participation Ends
1.You Deeds it like an undergeared Hardcore hero (cue Bon Jovi's 'Blaze of Glory' for added effect);
2.You break the rules in any fashion;
3.It becomes so difficult to play your character that you voluntarily quit.

There are no prizes for this tournament except bragging rights. The player who advances the farthest with the most amount of characters will be declared the winner. Sign-ups begin immediately and continue indefinitely, but the tournament will be declared "Over and Ended" on October 6th, 2015.

If you have any questions please feel free to post them in this thread at any time – I will answer them as soon as possible, and be as clear as I can in explaining anything that is not clearly understood. I don't mind what the question is so don't hesitate to ask anything at all regarding the tournament and its rules!

Good luck to all, and happy hunting!

 

[Grisu]

Very interesting tournament idea!

I'm not sure I can commit to it though, as I don't have the time to make any reasonable progress with 3 chars simultaneously. That said, I always really like following along in your old Three-Way Dance tournaments so I could very well change my mind once some other players get going in this one.

Some questions:

- Do all 3 characters have to share the same tier, or can they designate separately?

- As for not sharing equipped items, is it only while the item is being worn? Once we find a 'better' rare amulet on our first character, can we then use the old one on another character, or is it voided once it's been worn for the first time?

- And just to make sure I understand properly, we can move "up" through the tiers at any point at our discretion, we just can't move back "down" the ladder?

- The dedicated magic find gear can ONLY be used in our dedicated "runs", correct? If we accidentally keep some on when we get back to questing, it becomes void for our other characters?

 

[Grisu]

Sorry for the double post. I'm on a phone right now and it's difficult to see what I'm doing.

 

[Grisu]

Thanks for taking an interest! It's always nice to be remembered To answer your questions, no, all characters don't have to be in the same tier. It may turn out that you progress really well in finding items with one particular character and your other two are walking around Nightmare still wearing Blues, for example. For tournament difficulty the item is voided on equip, unless of course you designate the item to be part of your MF gear. Yes you may move up tiers only once you've equipped a full set of items from the previous tier (wearing all Rare items in EVERY slot before moving up to Set and Crafted items). But you don't have to be fully equipped in the next tier to wear the items, just keep in mind that you won't be wearing items in slots you don't have items ready to go in. And yes once you've moved up a tier, you can not move back down. You are absolutely correct with your last point regarding MF gear

 

[Grisu]

One more small question as the desire to sign up and completely overextend myself rises:

- Are the 3 character self-found in the sense that they can only use what they themselves find, or can we share questing (non-MF runs) items between characters (as long as it isn't equipped)? ie. barb finds an Oculus, can he give it to his sorc buddy to use in normal questing?

The part about useable items suggests that gear can be shared between the three, but I didn't see it explicitly stated anywhere. Just want to make sure

 

[Grisu]

I have a quick question as well, what is your logic around rerunning bosses and specific superuniques, but making people limit their amount of gambling per item? It just seems like it's a lot to keep track of compared to the usual single pass, no limit to gambling.

 

[Grisu]

I can't in good conscience walk away from this - it seems like a very unique idea. I'll go through it in more detail, but my first question is: when doing runs (say Andy), are any enemies along the path fair game? Or is this strictly single pass except for the target enemy?

Other question - what's the benefit of having a "tournament stash" if we can't put an item back on the character? Am I missing something?

What happens if you deed one character? Finished?

Otherwise, I'm planning a Trinity Trifecta - a hydra sorc, holy shock zealot, and either immolation arrow or frozen arrow amazon.

 

[Grisu]

More replies, fantastic!

Yes, items found - but not equipped - on one character can be traded over to your other characters to use.

Bladejj, it's intentional as it is supposed to be difficult. I know it's a bit too much and I may consider changing the gambling to no limits... But the desired result is making things difficult so luck and chance are integral to advancement.

Dazliare, Act Bosses it is strict single pass - Superuniques it can be enemies up to the target monster. Tournament stash is simply for muling off items that are unneeded (or too nice to lose ), in order to give some breathing room on space management. Deedsing one character isn't game over but Deedsing all three is

 

[Grisu]

More replies, fantastic!

Yes, items found - but not equipped - on one character can be traded over to your other characters to use.

Bladejj, it's intentional as it is supposed to be difficult. I know it's a bit too much and I may consider changing the gambling to no limits... But the desired result is making things difficult so luck and chance are integral to advancement.

Dazliare, Act Bosses it is strict single pass - Superuniques it can be enemies up to the target monster. Tournament stash is simply for muling off items that are unneeded (or too nice to lose ), in order to give some breathing room on space management. Deedsing one character isn't game over but Deedsing all three is

If we deeds one, do we need to bring a replacement up to that same area?

 

[Grisu]

Your characters must stay within one Act of each other, but that doesn't mean they have to be on the same quests, neck and neck. It's only game over for you if you Deeds all three characters or are unable to play anymore because the restrictions are making play so difficult that you literally can't progress any further and have to forfeit.

 

[Grisu]

My first character is a Necromancer named LC_BonyJabroni. Don't let the name fool you, I don't know what I want to do with him yet. I'd forgotten how arduous it is doing full clears on /players8 but the upside is that I'm barely clearing level 3 of the Jail and I'm already halfway to lvl 20, which is nice. On my travels I've found MF Jewellery for my MF set and a good lot of Rares that are tempting me to switch tiers already. It's fairly easy going and I'm tempted to get some Superunique runs out of the way soon. Speaking of Uniques I've only found one, a Stoutnail from a random boss pack in the Stony Field I think.

 

[Grisu]

Dazliare, Act Bosses it is strict single pass - Superuniques it can be enemies up to the target monster.

I'm assuming by single pass you mean only drops from the Act Boss themselves counts. In the rules it says we can re-run the Act Bosses. Is this correct?

Also, cool idea not being able to return to previous acts, so all runs must be done before you move on. I'll be interested to see the character levels in this one.

One last question, the "remaining within 1 act of each other" means that for example a character cannot progress to Act 3 while another in is Act 1, correct? For instance, a character can complete all quests in A2 while others are in A1, as long as they don't progress to A3. Or do they have to wait to start A2 until others are finished A1?

Hopefully that wasn't too confusing! Just trying to make sure I've got it all right in my head.

 

[Grisu]

Rerunning Act Bosses is permitted for the amount of runs specified (first Act Boss kill to complete quest doesn't count to that tally). And yes, correct! Only the boss drops count when doing boss runs

You are also absolutely correct in the first description where a character can complete all quests in Act 2 whilst remaining characters are in Act 1, they just can't move on to Act 3.

 

[Grisu]

Well I said I would wait to sign up as I don't have too much playing time anymore, but I couldn't forgive myself if I passed up one of PSYCHO's epic tournaments (I never did compete in the old TWD tournies). I will most likely be taking more of a single-pass approach (mostly just so that I can progress in a reasonable amount of time, I definitely won't be done by October), but I might do some boss runs and such later on if(when) I need equipment upgrades.

So without further ado, I present to you my team. They won't be moving fast, but they'll be moving.


Tao the Hydra Sorceress - lvl 1, Rogue Encampment

Gort the Conc. Barbarian - lvl 1, Rogue Encampment (note: he will not be dual-wielding)

Sheela the TS/DTail Assassin - lvl 1, Rogue Encampment

 

[Grisu]

Welcome to the fold! I'm glad to report that the Deeds Cherry has been popped. RIP LC_BonyJabroni who died on his 2nd Andariel run. He leaves behind a bunch of rares and a few Uniques and Sets that he was fortunate enough to transfer over to his tournament friends, but he takes with him all charms, MF gear and an inventory/ingame stash full of chipped gems, other unmuled rares and his own first tier gear.

If it's any consolation be burned down Andy at the same time.

 

[Grisu]

Apparently my phone won't let me edit posts. I managed to gamble Gorefoot boots as well, haha.

 

[Grisu]

Ouch too bad about the deeds! Are you going to continue with your other chars, or restart completely? That's really early on to lose 1/3 of your stash space.

Also, a couple questions while I'm thinking of them:

1. Are we dealing with charms in the same way as the rest of the equipment? As in, once it's used in combat it is only legal on that character, but we can still trade charms around that we find as long as we don't use them in questing.

2. Do our jewels have to follow our tier restrictions as well, or can I socket a rare jewel in a magic armor and stay in the lower tier?

I hope to get started with one of my team members this weekend, and should hopefully have some progress to report soon.

 

[Grisu]

No I'm a pretty rules following kinda guy, I'll just have to make do with my Druid and Zon now. Charms are OK to transfer and use, likewise socketing with Rare Jewels and Runes etc.

 

[Grisu]

Gort has taken the honours and is the first to step out into the Moor. He started out as every young Barbarian does, axe and shield in hand. Gort has a penchant for axes, and will continue to use them throughout his entire career. He's not so sure about shields though, so at his earliest convenience he sold what he had found and bought himself a nice big 2-hander. Ahhh, that felt better.

He was off to a good start, finding his first chipped topaz already in the Blood Moor, as well as a handy XP shrine. The Den was promptly cleared, not even Corpsefire could slow him down. We howled his minions away so that we could cleave his skull in peace. Up through the Cold Plains we went, hiring Paige the cold Rogue along the way for some company. Honestly, having access to both Howl and Taunt so early on make this seem almost unfair.

We got lucky in the Blood Raven fight, and she got stuck on a grave (never seen that before!), so Gort and Paige could take her out without having to run around too much. Our next test was against Coldcrow, but she was harmless after Howling her minions away:

Word of how we embarassed the lady of the Cave must have spread, because we got a pretty rough greeting when we went down to level 2:

Same strategy applied, we Howled her minions away so we could dispatch the boss first. After this we taunted the minions back 1 by 1 and killed them by the entrance so as to not wake any more monsters. After this Gort was brimming with confidence, and went toe-to-toe with both Treehead and Griswold, of course winning both times.

Not much else notable happened in this session. The Countess dropped a Nef, and we moved on up through to the Outer Cloister where our duo is resting a bit before getting back to it.

We've found some decent rares, but nothing good enough to tempt Gort to move out of tier 1. Other than that, 2 x Cleglaw's Shield dropped, but nothing much else. Our pack rat type behaviour is going to have to change soon though, with the limited space. Sheela's stash and inventory are crammed full of goodies, and Tao is about 1/2 to 3/4 full already. Our plan is to push Gort up to the cube first, so we can at least cube up all the gems, rings, and amulets we're hanging on to to free up some space.

And of course, I have another question.

Since we cannot revisit Acts except for quest completion, how do we deal with Wirt's Leg. Do we have to keep 1 on each of our characters if we want to do Cows, or are we allowed to run back in and snatch a leg once we've completed a difficulty? Personally, I'm fine with either. I think having to decide between having 3-9 extra stash spaces, or the ability to do cows and potentially get some loot is interesting. Then again, I am doing single-pass, so that decision isn't as crucial for people who will be consistently re-running areas. Oh well, I leave it in your capable hands @PSYCHO.


Gort the Conc. Barbarian with Paige the Cold Rogue - lvl 17, Outer Cloister

Tao the Hydra Sorceress - lvl 1, Rogue Encampment

Sheela the TS/DTail Assassin - lvl 1, Rogue Encampment

 

[Grisu]

Returning for Wirt's Leg is aok in my book! Minor update as phone typing is annoying. LC_Galeforce the Druid is in Act 2 and all cubed up, giving LC_Fireworks a ton of room again. Considering doing the majority of Andy runs on the Zon but we'll see how we go once we get there as she's only up to the Countess. Pelta Lunata in the Underground Passage for my trouble and I ignored two Set Quilted Armours as I already have two.