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[2015] The Passive Aggressive Tournament [by Pb_pal]
- Thread starter Grisu
- Start date
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WallE has slain Mephisto and is ready to head through the short act 4. Nothing too difficult in the rest of act 3 really. Got a nice double drop from Brem and minions. Too bad it was just tancred's amulet.
Meph got agro'd early due to me spamming confuse on some blood lords, so he came out to play, this ended up being a pretty safe spot where he couldn't easily hit us with his lightning. He got the merc a couple times, took a while, but my crushflange helped speed it up. Drop was okay, not too useful. Couple faileds in their, and then after I killed him I racked a failed unique assassin claw
I'm a little worried about the diablo fight coming up, but I'll probably just drop the players setting down a bit for him.
WallE, Necro, level 32, Pandemonium fortress
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So as promised, here is my full update of normal for Relic the ironmancer, who utilizes most curses, and Razan the desert guard blessed aim mercenary. Overall the character is very fun and the wide variety of curses makes for multiple approaches to situations which will come in very hardy as enemies get tougher. The curses I utilize are:
My strategy is fairly simple, cast either DV or Confuse the crowd (which typically brings more monsters) and Decrepify the monsters closest to my tanks to make killing more efficient. I opted to leave Dim Vision at level 4 (5 with +1 skills) as this allows for a more strategic use of the curse. As I will show in later screenshots, I prefer to have multiple curses active as one time as a form of crowd control and safety for my group. Now onto a quick summary of Normal.
- Dim vision - against moderately against some rangers attackers, imps, and those who summon and/or heal other.
- Confuse - used extensively against large packs of monsters to take the heat off my mercenary and IR.
- Decrepify - used extensively against most enemies.
- Attract - I didn't use this skill until late in act V, but it is becoming one of my most curses. Attract cannot be overriden by other curses and it is a lot more controlled than using confuse.
- I haven't used any of the other curses yet, but I imagine Terror might be useful in an NDE situation.
Andariel's drop...
Dim Vision made Act II a cake walk. Also, the blinding affect prevents Greater Mummies from raises skeletons.
Mephiso's poor drop:
Dim Vision makes easy work of gloams. I initially tried Confuse but what ensued was absolute chaos!
Confuse at work, this allowed for a must easy dispatching of the Smith than usual:
And now onto the fight with Diablo. As I mentioned in a previous post, this was one of the scariest and most thrilling battle in my D2 career, that is saying a lot as I have been playing off and on for over 13 years now.
I took him on at players 8 but I neglected to bring any of my crushing blow or open wounds gear. I have 85 fire resistance (thanks to a nice unique amulet) and around 60 lighting resistance. Countless golems of all varieties and may merc resurrections were needed but I finally managed to get him down to a manageable level of 10% life remaining. But this came at the expense of all my purples and 500k of my total 550k of gold.
By this time, Relic felt the need to give Diablo a piece of his mind and give him a couple wacks with his 2-10 overall damage wand. I'll let the next few screenshots speak for themselves, but it shouldn't be too difficult to piece together what happened in between the screenshots. Around 10 seconds ticked away between the following screenshots.
Probably a stupid thing to do on my part but in the end he was defeated and dropped an Iceblink and Cathan's seal, the former being a good candidate for an Iron Golem in the future.
Here is a good example of utilities multiple curses at one time. As you can see, I have the ranged attackers under the effects of Dim Vision and am utilizing confuse on the other mob. The enemies closest to Razan get Decrepified so they are slowed, weakened, and cursed. While these situations are relatively easy in Normal, I tried to hone in on tactics that will be essential to my survival going forward.
I Baal was taken down with ease and dropped an Artic Belt and and eth rune. I have one more picture of the cows but am limited to 10 imbeded pictures so I'll post that with my next update.
Current skills are the following:
Summoning - Golem Mastery (20), Iron Golem (7), 1 point in Clay Golem, Blood Golem, Summon Resist
Poison and Bone - Bone Armor (1), Bone Wall (1)
Curses - Dim Vision (4), Decrepify (3), 1 point in Amplify Damage, Attract, Weak, Terror, Confuse
Items are the the following:
Code:Character name : Relic Character type : Hardcore Necromancer Character level : 48 Character exp : 40993186 Strength : 61 Energy : 25 Dexterity : 29 Vitality : 200 Stat Points Rem : 5 Skill Points Rem: 0 Life : 629 / 505 Mana : 54 / 119 Stamina : 318 / 311 Amror: Gemmed Superior Breast Plate - 39% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items Ring 1: Wraith Loop Ring(+3 to Energy, Cold Resist +19%, Poison Resist +5%, 20 MF) Ring 2:Bone Band Ring (+2 to Strength, +1 to Maximum Damage, Magic Damage Reduced by 2, Fire Resist +18%, +10 MF) Amulet #1- Amulet of Fortune (+21% MF) Amulet: Graverobber's Amulet (+1 to Summoning Skills)Gloves: Brimstone Clutches (+26 to AR, Lightning Resist +16%, 16%MF) Helm: Artisan's Great Helm of Energy (+3 to Energy, +60% MF) Belt - Plated Belt of the Colossus (+51 to Life) Boots: Skull Tread Boots (+5 to Dexterity, Fire Resist +6%, Cold Resist +31%, +19% MF,20% FRW) Weapson: Summoner's Bone Wand of Radiance (+1 to Necromancer Skill Levels,+1 to Iron Golem) Charms - Lucky Grand Charm of Greed - 39% Extra Gold from Monsters, 4% MF Grand Charm of Sustenance - +25 to Life Coral Large Charm of Life - +11 to Life, Lightning Resist +11% Small Charm of Greed - 9% Extra Gold from Monsters Bronze Large Charm of Life - +10 to Life, +8 to Attack Rating Snake's Grand Charm of Strength - +4 to Strength, +24 to Mana Russet Small Charm of Life - +9 to Life, Fire Resist +6% Large Charm of Life - +12 to Life Weapon Switch - Carrion Slayer Great Axe +59% Enhanced Damage +12 to Attack Rating +1 to Minimum Damage 4% Life stolen per hit Repairs 1 durability in 20 seconds Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired) Lizard's Large Charm of Life (+6 to Life, +5 to Mana) In Stash: Triumphant Ring of Telekinesis Bone Wand - +3 to Iron Golem (Necromancer Only) Gargoyle HeadAdds (+1 to Lower Resist, +3 to Summon Resist, Socketed (2: 0 used)) Mercenary Items : 1: Gemmed Breast Plate - 39% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired), Socketed (3: 3 used) 2: Relic's Raven Veil Circlet (I'm considering socketing this excellent gamble) Magic Damage Reduced by 3 All Resistances +18 21% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items +1 to Barbarian Skill Levels +3 to Mana After Each Kill 3: Savage Partizan of the Wraith Two-Hand Damage: 60 to 134 +79% Enhanced Damage 6% Mana stolen per hit
Currently, the iron golem is made out of a Malice Claymore, the open wounds has a huge affect. Also, the IG is not affected by the life drain. Surprisingly, he has survived for all of Act V with only 2 instances were a TP was needed to save him.
He has found a ton of S/U's and has had fairly good rune luck.
Hope you enjoyed the read. Real life tends to get in the way a lot so playing sessions are typically 1-2 hour blocks every few day to week.
Relic the Ironmancer with Razan the Blessed Aim Mercenary and a Malice IG, NM Rogue Encampment, Level 48
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@Bee - Thanks! Those sports can be deadly, I almost lost Calabi to a hockey game back in normal as well.
@bladejj - Wow awesome update, that was a good read! That Diablo fight looks like it was terrifying, great job getting through it! Congrats on the Destroyer, I'm interested to see how the curse-using develops as you progress. Great job!
@Dazliare - The valk will indeed make you much more durable, it's a whole different game when she's around. That sounds like an awesome bow for the early game, CTC amp is an awesome mod to have, I kept any valk that spawned with it for as long as humanly possible. However, if you can keep upgrading bows that have it on them, you can maybe use the valk for other favourable mods (knockback, chilling, poison etc). Good work with the trio of ladies!
--
Calabi picked up in the Ancient's Way, ready to make her push towards Baal. The Icy Cellar provided us with a gloam bosspack (Spectral hit, Cursed) that took Kasim out a few times, but other than that it was fairly standard and Snapchip went down without issue despite being Stone Skin on top of his usual CE/Cursed. We had rolled a valk with ctc amp, so that helped alot with the increased physical resistance.
Up to the Ancients we went! I had been a little nervous for this fight for some time, as I wasn't sure if I would be able to seperate them well enough to make it manageable for Kasim as zons have a pretty terrible cast rate for teleport (she has no FCR). Couple that with the fact that I had an amp-casting valk, so I didn't want to resummon her unless absolutely necessary. We took the standard approach of placing a Decoy in front of Madawc (he is ranged, so he should run directly away from the decoy to get into his attacking range), then he hit the altar and did a couple slow teleports down towards the entrance. It worked! Only Talic and Korlic followed, and we were able to establish a good fighting position:
Korlic was Cold Enchanted and Stone Skin, with Talic being Spectral Hit and Teleport. As you can see, Talic was distracted by the decoy, so Kasim and the valk could focus their efforts on Korlic. He took a while due to being Stone Skin, but he was never a threat. Talic went down extremely quickly once his brother had been killed. We moved up to find out where Madawc had gotten to, and found him hanging out around the altar. He was Spectral Hit, FE but was not the slightest bit of a problem as we managed to get him backed into a corner quite quickly. That was much easier than expected! Granted, we got very favourable mods (and on the first roll!), and having 3 targets to distract them meant Calabi never even got targetted. Okay, let's go find that Worldstone!
WSK level 1 drew Unholy Corpses (reanimators), Vile Witches (Succubi), and Fetid Defilers. It wasn't very dangerous, but it could be slow at times as we didn't want to draw big groups of the reanimators and succubi. They can be tough to contain and really pack a punch when they're together. Level 2 drew Greater Hell Spawn, Serpent Magi and Horror mages. It was extremely easy, absolutely nothing interesting happened whatsoever. Level 3 brought us Fire Boars (with their Lashers), Demon Sprites and Soul Killers (blowdart flayer variant). Again, nothign really noteworthy happened, aside from frustration of losing a bunch of kills to the lasher-enhanced exploding boars.
With that we got ready to take the trip down to the Throne. We got our TP staff ready just in case, and took the stairs. No stair trap! Perfect, so we switched back to our axe and progressed as slowly as possible until we foudn out what we were dealing with. We got around the corner when lighting came flying from off-screen. Burning souls boss pack, that's okay, slow missiles really makes them harmless. After they were dealt with we continued up and met our next two monster types; Death Lords and Undead Soul Killers (exploding dolls). They ended up being not nearly as dangerous as I thought they would be. We used the decoy to scout, which would take all the of the dolls' attention, so as long as we were careful not to let them explode near us, we were very safe. We cleared the throne without issue.
Waves 1+2 were no problem. Black flail > Resurrectors. Bartuc had Holy Freeze, so the fight was pretty slow. It never proved very dangerous though. The fourth wave was no problem, as Slow Missiles just makes a mockery out of Venom Lords. Lister's group was pulled out of the room and we got the valk into a favourable position:
The wall kept her from getting knocked back, so Kasim was free to poke at the minions as he pleased. He managed to take out a pile of them before the formation broke and we had to retreat further out of the room. We managed to get the valk into another corner, and even though Kasim got wiped almost instantly by a barrage of hits from Lister, he had taken out enough of the minions that Calabi could finish the job.
The Baal fight was actually quite fun. We subbed Kasim's helmet to Guillaume's Face, so both him and Calabi were sporting some CB (she also has OW from her Gore Riders). The fight consisted of Baal teleporting around a bunch, and our group chasing him down. He only summoned his clone a couple times, so it wasn't too annoying. When he was getting down to low health, he made a pretty good last stand:
Unfortunately for him, Kasim actually ignored the appendages this time, so him and Calabi could tag-team the big guy. The CB and OW made it a pretty quick fight in the end, and nobody (except Baal) was ever at critically low health. We used up about a row and a half of full juves and some healers making sure Kasim didn't get below half, but that was it really. Baal's drop was about as dull as ever, but that's okay, because I now had my first Guardian ever!
Obligatory stats-upon-baal-death screeny:
That was great and all, but it wouldn't be complete until those moo moos bit it as well. The Cow level was pretty uneventful, we met up with the cow king right away, so that was a bit scary as we had no space to retreat and he was PI. He went down fairly easily though, albeit slowly. We decided that since we had a ton of money lying around to spare, it would be fun to use our Black flail to make some ground beef and leave it lying all over the cow level. All in all, it was an easy clear, but it was also very fun.
The only notable find of the last leg of the journey was Trang's Shield in the cow level.
So there you have it, Calabi's journey has finally come to a close! As I mentioned above, she is my first Guardian, and she was an extremely fun character to play. I highly recommend playing a passive zon to everyone who has ever wanted to try it, they are extremely durable (if I could Guardian one with my MUCH less than perfect play, everybody else stands a pretty good chance), and with some decent drops they aren't even that slow to quest with. This was the most fun I've had with a D2 character in a long long time. I will leave you all with a final breakdown of her gear(you can see her stats above, so I'll spare you that):
Calabi's main gear used was:
Main Switch
* Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest Death Mask (Socketed with a Perfect Ruby)
* 'Lionheart' Gothic Plate
* Chromatic (26@res) Amulet of Luck (30% MF)
* Rare rings with various resists/AR/PDR/MDR
* 100% monster flee Balanced Knife (this has gotten me out of more trouble than I care to admit)
* 'Rhyme' Bone Shield
* Athletic (+3 P/M skills) Light Gauntlets of Readiness (10%ias)
* Russet (16%FR) War Belt of the Squid (+72 life)
* Gore Rider War Boots
Fighting switch:
* 'Passion' Feral Axe
A bunch of life/res charms
Summary of Bonuses:
- 10% OW
- 15% CB
- 15% Deadly Strike
- 62% Critical Strike
- 54% Dodge
- 60% Avoid
- Maxed resistances on shield switch, 69/70/73/51 on axe switch
- 3510 AR with Kasim's Aura (76% cth Hell Bovine)
- 38% chance to block with 'Rhyme'
- 55% MF on Shield switch (30% with the axe)
- 12FPA with Berserk, 8/9/9/9/14 with Zeal
- +3 Passive and Magic Skills
Merc:
* Tal Rasha's Crest (Guillaume's Face for boss fights)
* 'Lionheart' Gothic Plate
* 'Insight' Colossus Voulge
Areas skipped: 0
Monsters parked: 0
Guardian Calabi the Axe-wielding Amazon, with Kasim the Blessed Aim Guard - lvl **, Full Game Clear[/b]
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Very quick note on Relic, he cleared the Blood Moor, Cold Plains, Burial Ground the attached Crypt / Mausoleum. In those four area's alone he found the following S/U items. It seemed like they were dropping way more than usual. It's been a while sense I've played a D2 character through NM/Hell, but is this something I should continue to expect going forward? If so, it should make it a lot more entertaining. Quick note, I am running approximately 275% MF on merc kills.
Interestly, my current rings are both superior to the Nagel (21%) and offer some great resistances. Also, I attached the picture of the cows showing the full power of confuse.
Relic the Ironmancer with Razan the Blesses Mercenary and a Malice IG, NM Cold Plains, Level 48
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Thanks for the congrats everyone, I'm glad people have enjoyed reading about her journey.
@Southpaw8668 - Thanks! Glad you enjoyed the tournament
@bladejj - That's an awesome shot of the cows, Relic looks so calm and collected standing in amongst all that beef! As for your S/U count, that seems a bit high but definitely not unreasonable. It's quite amazing the amount of stuff you can find when running high MF on full clears. I think both jiansonz and I ended up having somewhere in the mid-400's on merc kill by the end of NM, so the potential for some great finds is definitely there.
I'm still debating joining up with another character, and I might do so, but first I'm going to take a crack at kestegs' tournament.
Good luck to all remaining participants, I will be watching your progress very closely! Here's hoping Calabi and Sissy can get some more company!
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