[2015] The Passive Aggressive Tournament [by Pb_pal]

Congrats Zylo on the tournament's first Destroyer, awesome job! Sounds like quite the battle with Baal, but you handled it well. I'm excited to see what NM will bring for you.

@jiansonz - I did not know the specific level that the weapon upgrade happened, so thank you for saving me the effort looking it up. :) Hm, I think I will keep the valk at slvl 7 (while pumping Decoy) for as long as it's feasible, to maximize Kasim's extra %MF.

@dj - I'm loving the writeups from you, hopefully your trio of ladies has an easy time taking on Andy! How are you finding Blade Sentinel so far?



I didn't get as much time in with Calabi as I'd hoped last night, so I will provide a proper update, with an up-to date table, tomorrow! Good luck everyone!
 
Waheed got his coveted level 31 level-up in the Sewers, and could swap to an 80% Savage Bill.

Disused Reliquary had a stairs trap that caused Sissy to use quite a few potions. She had cleared out Sewers, UK, Causeway and three temples in this session and not used a single potion. Now it was needed against a CE bat boss pack plus regular snakes and archers. I was impressed:

Sissy05%20Fane%20fight_zpsg17n5vtg.jpg


Conviction Bremm had me keeping a low profile (even though lightning is my best resist).

Mephisto fight:
Sissy06%20Mephisto_zps122lflw2.jpg

(always a good idea to boost those resists with potions, for both character and merc)
Fire Mastery has kicked in with a few points, which was useful. The OW (as can clearly be seen) from Steel was as well.
Just like against Duriel, Bloodfist was used in this fight.

Waheed pretty much owned Act IV. These mercs are so powerful. I mean, his old Savage Poleaxe would have been plenty good enough, and now he has the faster and more damaging Bill, plus ever-growing Enchant to help him.

My only concern was of course Diablo. The good thing was that I had found a very good Grand Charm with big fire resist, but it was still only 46%. Lightning was a very good 72% but Diablo's Lightning Inferno is still dangerous if you have crappy blocking or no shield because half of the damage is physical. My maximum life was 311.

I had stopped gambling at around when I fought Izual. This was good because many merc resurrections were needed. Diablo had full focus on Waheed - he left Sissy alone as long as Waheed was around:

Sissy07%20Diablo_zpsp8tsehet.jpg


We did good damage to Diablo, but he did even better damage to Waheed. Each of the two main elemental attacks required a full purple or a resurrection. Money was not much of an issue, so I saved the purples for myself when I was down to just one column of them. Posh girl's way of fighting safely, I suppose.

Best finds so far are mostly charms. Two Grand, 23 fire and 19 lightning, and five Small for various elements. My last charm is one with +8 life. I normally require +10 life per inventory space to even think about keeping them, but sorcs are so wimpy early on...

Halbu can sell Plated Belts with the big resist prefixes. It did not take long in Act IV before he sold me a 30% Coral Plated Belt with +1 STR.

But the best find yet is my amulet. Quite a ways into Act III I was still wearing a low-end Fortune amulet. I did not gamble any boots even though 'of Luck' had been available for around half an act. This was because once I got a second 29% Circlet of Luck, the amulet had the highest MF improvement potential, clearly higher than my boots. So I kept gambling amulets, expensive as it is at this stage. Major drought for a long time, and then this beauty:

Rainbow Amulet of Luck
Required Level: 19
All Resistances +11
35% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items


Sissy the Axe (+javelin) Enchantress and Waheed the Defiance guard, level 35, Bloody Foothills next
 
pharphis said:
Any points in energy shield?
I haven't thought of this - I did not even know it was an allowed skill! Sure, it could be useful, I am not doing anything with my mana other than buffs and teleporting. Probably don't want to spend 4 points to get it, so I'll be on the lookout for an item with it.

pharphis said:
also your hotkeys are goofy. "a" and F8 are both used :/

I can explain this. :D

I usually put the most important skills on easily accessible keys, like Z, X, A, S, W, E and so on, except for Sorceresses.
For a long time, I played almost exclusively Sorceresses in Classic, and I did not know (or bother) about remapping hotkeys. So the F4-F8 keys are for me ingrained in the backbone and set in stone for all eternity. They are Fire Wall, Blaze, Frost Nova, Static Field and Teleport, respectively. F8 is therefore Teleport for any of my characters using it.

Also, A is always Attack* and F1 is always Throw.
(* except for some melee characters who only use Attack as default when out of mana)
 
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Goofy ;)

You plan to make a 'leaf' staff, or have? You should be able to shop a nice enchant staff in A2 pretty easily... the AR and dmg bonus is probably worth it

(psst 4 skill points aren't very much unless you plan to max shiver armor, or put a lot of points into thunderstorm..?). I think melody (?) is a good rw option if you happen to find an OK 4os staff and have the required runes (lum, etc.?)
 
@Pb_pal Thanks for hosting this awesome tourney. I'll most likely join after finishing my character (one way or another) in the Skillless tourney, but I had a question. If Assassins are allowed Mind Blast, should Paladins be allowed Conversion? I plan on playing a Paladin and Conversion would fit with the build's theme.
 
@jiansonz - that is one beautiful amulet! Calabi is very jealous. Great progress too, I'm curious to see how a maxed shiver armour will do in Hell, have you tried it before?

@Sput - We'd love to have you. :) As for conversion, I think that could be a fun skill, and definitely doesn't go against the style of the tournament. Since there are no pally's yet, I don't mind changing the allowed skills. I'll update it in the main post as well. Best of luck to Skilllass, I'll be watching closely!

--

Calabi cleared out the rest of the Flayer Jungle, and all three Kurast "cities" above ground with no problems or excitement. The Valk has made crowd control much easier, and it frees me up to use Decoy more strategically as well. I'm impressed with her so far. The Sewers were also a breeze. All the bridges and obstruction made it very easy to take on monsters at a reasonable pace without getting overwhelmed. After resurfacing with Khalim's Heart, we could no longer delay. It was time for the temples.

We decided to do Sarina's temple first. No stair trap, good. It was the layout with the small entrance room with another small room on each side and the big open room with Sarina waiting. We cleared the two small rooms to give us some room to breathe, and inched forward towards the big main room. Nothing. Calabi decided to take action. She threw a decoy into the room to wake Sarina's pack, and then Kasim and the valk bottlenecked them in the doorway for easy disposal. No sweat!

The rest of the temples were quite easy as well. Only one had some Wailing Beasts waiting in the entrance room (with a champion pack of spiders off to the side which were easily kept busy by the Decoy). No problems whatsoever! I can only hope I get that lucky in the later difficulties (if Calabi even makes it that far). One of the temples (Ruined Fane, I believe) was completely empty, except for one pack of regular snakes. I didn't even know that was possible.

The Council and Durance went off without a hitch, though we did run into our first PI boss pack. Not challenging, but a nice glimpse of what's to come ;). OW was our friend here. Meph went down like a sack of potatoes, and his drop was underwhelming.

Calabi spent all her money gambling circlets again and STILL not a single one with %MF on it! Her and Kasim are still wearing their 2-chippie helms from act 1! I'm tempted to just stop trying for circlets, and wait for A5 where the 3-socket helms become available. This would allow me to try and find some better gloves/boots as I'll need some resists for Big D (she's in the 20-30 range for Fire/Lightning right now). Hm... we will see.

Act 4 was an absolute breeze. Kasim will need a new weapon soon, but he still kills reasonably quickly and it's very safe with the valk and decoy taking the heat off of him. These guys gave us a bit of trouble in the ROF, but once we got them to the point in the screenie, they were harmless. Calabi found Stormguild Large Shield along the way, and was happy with the extra +25% LR for the fight with Big D (it also has higher blocking than her current shield). She also shopped A nice %FR belt, so her resists for F/Li were both around 50%. She also found a fire shrine to use for the fight against Diablo, although she didn't end up needing it, or the new shield. This sums up the whole showdown with Diablo. That's the valk that D is hosing, and it barely moved her health. No danger whatsoever. His drop wasn't great, although the nightsmoke could be upgraded later on if I can't find a better belt.

Priorities for Act5 are getting a better weapon for Kasim, and buying/finding some 3os helms and leave Calabi's horrible circlet gambling luck in the past.

Calabi the Sword-wielding Amazon, with Kasim the Blessed Aim Guard - lvl 35, Harrogath

--

Code:
Table of Heroes:
Forum Name    Class       Char Name        LVL    ACT      Area
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Zylo          Druid       Hoyt             48     A1(NM)   Rogue Encampment
jiansonz      Sorceress   Sissy            35     A5       Harrogath
Pb_pal        Amazon      Calabi           35     A5       Harrogath
djmbbandie    Assassin    Natasha          19     A1       Inner Cloister
Jocular       Assassin    ?????            14     A1       Stony Field/Dark Wood(?)
pharphis      Sorceress   SlamDoorsShut    11     A1       Stony Field
Morathi       Assassin    Carrisa           1     A1       Rogue Encampment
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
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Pb_pal said:
I'm curious to see how a maxed shiver armour will do in Hell, have you tried it before?
No, I have never had more than a few points in it, and I've never played a character (or merc) where Defense has mattered much in the late game. Or maybe it did a little for my Set/Unique Worshipper Concentrate Barb...
I figured this would be a good time for maxed Shiver Armor, since I play with a Defiance merc, with a build that is not stretched for skill points, and my planned gear is forcing me to get so strong that I as a side effect will be able to wear almost all armor types.

Pb_pal said:
One of the temples (Ruined Fane, I believe) was completely empty, except for one pack of regular snakes. I didn't even know that was possible.

Insane Wayne once found a temple with no monsters at all! My 'personal best' is a temple with three regular bats.
 
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Natasha, Visala, and Melody have cleared the sewers.

It was not really an exciting section. An upgrade in weapons came courtesy of Bone Ash (who Visala would like to hug, if he weren't broken bones on the floor...) The rare hunter's bow he dropped increased her damage and gave her cold damage on her fire arrows. He also dropped a wrist blade that Natasha is now currently using (does PMH work with blade sentinel?).

Andy took down three versions of Melody and removed Visala twice. Natasha got her with the blade sentinel and her trusty Cleglaw's shield (which definitely helped with only 5 poison resist). Melody is now level 3 and basically all the monsters have decided to start targeting her, which helps a lot.

Melody: Hey! I might become a master soon at this rate!

The sewers had an unpleasant burning dead archer infestation, but they concentrated on Melody and Visala for the most part and left Natasha to her methods.

Visala: I'm a big fan of Bone Ash. Without him this wouldn't be possible.

Natasha: Hehe, the evil plan is working to perfection.

Melody, Visala: What?

Natasha: Nothing.

Natasha, Visala, and Melody, the levels 21,20 and 3 Assassin, Rogue, and Shadow Warrior, stalking Elzix waiting on Circlets. Next Up: Rocky Waste.
 
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djmbbandie said:
(does PMH work with blade sentinel?).
Unfortunately, no. Neither does Open Wounds. The only way to stop monster regeneration directly with Blade Sentinel is with poison damage.

PMH (but not OW) is, however, carried by Blade Shield (and both are carried by Blade Fury, not that that matters in this tourney...).
 
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Pyrotechnician said:
I'm rooting for Zylo. He's doing a build I enjoy but I did not enjoy. Therefore he gets my vote.

Also good luck to everyone else (except pharphis because reasons).
Ahh yes, I also find myself in a love/hate relationship with this build. Part of me wants to make a SC twinked hybrid of it, and see how powerful it can actually be.

I did the den of evil quest in NM a few days ago. The killing speed of Hoyt has seemed to take a bit of a hit entering NM. Also the -resists that comes with NM is somewhat unnerving. I'm at that level now where I'd really hate to see him deed.(I rewatched all Pharphis' deeding videos, to get a sense of what it must be like.) Ugh... how are you still playing? Also yes, I realize I just compared losing my level 50's druid to losing some mid 90's guys with gg gear... don't you judge me.

After seeing Pyro's post, I got back after it this morning. My mantra being, "Must not squander Pyro's vote." With that being said-

Update: Hoyt Lut Gholein(NM) Level 51
 
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As expected, no hiccups during the rest of Normal. Now that I was past Diablo, I could finally afford to seriously push Sissy's strength. Decided to leave it at 125 for the time being (high enough for Ancient Axe). Who knows, I may end up with a Lionheart armor, and then the STR is not far away for some of the elite axes.

Resists in NM are 44/25/11. Ugh at that lightning resist, but a Rhyme shield feels not far away now - Amn, Sol or Shael and I'm there. Of course, that does not help while I'm using the axe. OTOH, I won't use that much while I am still treasure hunting.

I've swapped to a bigger 'Steel', a Giant Axe:
Sissy08%20new%20axe_zpsioizmfu0-1.jpg


Enchant is maxed and Fire Mastery is at level 19+1. I felt pretty powerful, taking down imp towers in two quick swings. :D

Current javelin is a 1-101 Static Javelin of Alacrity. Was OK for taking down some of the suicide bombers. Sissy is not a very accurate thrower at the moment, though. Bad DEX and bad base AR (so the +% boost from Enchant has little to work with) She missed with the javelins quite a bit.

Larzuk sold me a nice 17/59 Lapis Plated Belt of the Colossus. The lightning resist took a hit (see above) when I took off the 30% Coral belt, but it was just out of the question going into NM (or fighting Baal for that matter) with less than 350 life...

Baal, yes. Took him on /players 8. Why not, with our damage output. After a while, he settled down nicely here:
Sissy09%20Baal_zpspwqdpppg.jpg

We both had our backs covered so that annoying Hoarfrost did not push us back.
Then he teleported over to the other end and it got messier again. No real danger, though.
His best drop was actually a magical item, a 195/8 Ferocious Fuscina of Gore. Slightly lower damage than the Partizan, but the faster attack speed makes up for it (keep in mind that Waheed is always Enchanted).

Earlier in the session, I found an ethereal Partizan. It's ilvl 35 which means it has 4 sockets max. So it would be 50% chance to get 4 sockets with the recipe. 'Insight' in this is of course pretty powerful, but I have a self-imposed rule that delays the making of Insight earlier than when it's possible to get something about as damaging from shopping or from gambling rare + upgrading. So I am not allowed to make Insight in an exceptional polearm for merc before Act IV Nightmare.

Recent finds:
- Milabrega's shield (in use until I can make Rhyme)
- Tarnhelm (38% MF, in use. Crappy topaz luck in the last two acts...)
- 24% Ring of Fortune (gambled)
- Sigon's boots + gloves (good potential for later - I want the helm or the belt also)


Destroyer Sissy the Axe (+javelin) Enchantress and Waheed the Defiance guard, level 49, NM Rogue Encampment
 
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Natasha, Visala and Melody appear.

Natasha: Hey guys, we just did the dry hills. Not much has happened. DJ is making me use a voulge for damage. It looks really awkward.

Visala: at least the speed now is going slightly faster.

Melody: not much of a challenge so far.

Natasha: we would like to send thanks to Bloodwitch for the rare belt and Deathspade.

Visala: Also for the horadric Cube. DJ cubed up his chippies and put them into two topazes for Natasha in a new helm.

Melody: Also we would like to thank Elzix for finally showing us some circlets.

Natasha: now he needs to work on getting us the good ones.

Visala: Bye Guys.

Natasha, Visala, and Melody, levels 23,22, and 3, now in the Dry Hills, next up: Far Oasis...
 
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jiansonz said:
Welcome back Morathi, and good luck with the 'Shadow Sister'!
Thank you sir :), pleasure playing along side an old veteran like yourself :). Brings back good memories :D.

Also congrats on making Destroyer :), and some amazing items you have come across! That amulet is seriously awesome! Almost end game quality!

Looking forward to seeing how Sissy tackles nightmare. Whats your plan vs FI's?

Pb_pal said:
@Morathi - I am both honoured that I've managed to pull you back in, and also very excited to see how you do. I just hope I didn't make the tournament too simple for all you vets ;) Good luck with Carrisa! I've added her to the table above your post, for completion's sake. :)

Why thank you for luring me back with a great tournament idea :).

-----------------

Carrisa has begun her journey without much trouble at all. Few points in BoS allowed for quick attack speed and movement speed which helped getting through the wilderness. From the early stages Carrisa wielded a 2soc Scepter with a chipped emerald and ruby. It funnily enough stayed with her for the whole act! Even Andariel felt it's wrath! I guess the increased attack speed from BoS made up for its poverty damage!

At clvl 17 i began gambling gloves/boots for Carrisa in hope of netting some nice MF mods, i wasn't quite successful, my best roll was some Heavy boots of luck (18% MF), ehhh not bad i guess, ill keep trying in Act 2!

So far Carrisa has 12 unused skill points, my main priority with her is to max Venom and SM ASAP, so i will be saving up my skill points until they are available at clvl 30.

Entering Act 2, Carrisa's first priority is to find a better weapon and hire an Act 2 merc where she will craft him some nice Savage polearms :). This should greatly increase our killing speed as my duo was struggling towards the end of act 1. I was lucky enough to find an El rune venturing forth to Andariel, so my goal right now is to make Steel Flail, hopefully sooner rather than later, just need to find a Tir rune which shouldn't be too hard :).

4 S/U's dropped during act 1, Biggins Bonnet, Gorefoot, Hsarus' Iron heel and Artic Binding. Nothing of use to Carrisa just yet.

Onwards to Act 2!

Carrisa the ShawdowSin, level 21, Normal Act 2 Lut Gholein
 
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