[2015] The Show Your Colours Tournament [by Pb_pal]

[Grisu]

@Southpaw8668 - Nice gloves! And good catch on those tricky claws. It's so hard to tell which color the item is by just the in-game graphics sometimes.

 

[Grisu]

You guys are doing really well. =)

 

[Grisu]

@felixbavaria - Vanilla is looking very cool in her new suit! The heavier plate mails do a wonderful job of coloration, cool to see it in action!

@Southpaw8668 - Nice finds so early on! Weapons can be quite tough to tell their colour sometimes I find, good catch on noticing.

--

Out into the frozen wilderness of Act V the two colourful warriors stepped, excited about the prospect of new equipment that suited their tastes better. They were immediately rewarded, as Shenk dropped these pretty nice gloves:

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I have a feeling those will be pretty tough to take away from Lemon. The finds kept coming as Eldritch then dropped us a nice white Sigon's Shield for Raldin to use. I've been pumping Conviction since lvl 30 so Raldin's killing power was already decent, but it's always nice to get a little boost! One thing I'm impressed with so far is the freeze length of his GS. Basically when he hits an enemy with one, it stays frozen until we get around to killing it. I know the length will be reduced in NM and Hell, but it's nice to enjoy the OP-ness of it for now! These two may not be the fastest killers, but they sure are proving to be safe so far.

Things were going well and the two cleared their way up to Anya when they hit a wall. That wall's name was Frozenstein. Conviction couldn't break his Cold Immunity, so Raldin was officially useless. Normally this wouldn't be an issue, except that he was Mana Burn on top of his Cold Enchanted. This meant that Lemon could only get in a hit or two before getting burned/chilled and having Frozenstein regenerate to full. Add on to this that we had the ignore-merc bug hit, and there was no hope of distracting him with Raldin as a punching bag. Hmm.

We tried smiting him against a wall, but MB/CE made that impossible. We tried simply chugging mana pots to keep the attacks going, but we he would regenerate back to full when we had to go back to town to restock. We even tried stocking full of healers and letting him beat on Lemon with Thorns activated. No dice. We didn't have the ingredients to craft a blood belt for the OW, and we had nowhere near enough poison damage to help. We had just one more idea to try, other wise the full clear was looking like it was going to be sacrificed very early on. We visited the now saved Anya, and power shopped until we had a few sets of nice red sticks. So we parked Frozenstein across a river, and let fly with Conviction on. It was working!

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After a couple trips back to town to re-stock, and a ton of patience as he ran around dodging our spears, we managed to kill him. The whole ordeal took about 30 minutes, but it was totally worth it to maintain full-clear status. Easily the most satisfying kill of Lemon's career so far! We're keeping a set of spears on switch just in case this comes up again.

The duo continued their journey, making their way down to Nihlathak's Lair. Raldin was used to his full effect here, making sure to shatter all the enemies, eliminating the threat of Nihl's CE and allowing Lemon to take him on face-to-face. Raldin showed his worth again in the Infernal Pit, where monsters couldn't even hide from him out in the lava. We found a new rare sword for Lemon to use, and after we upgraded it to exceptional it was quite a little upgrade on our current weapon:

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It's MUCH faster (WSM -30(!) vs +20, so we're getting almost a full extra attack per second in), and Lemon is quite partial to it's blood-red hue. This new sword absolutely tore through everything, and before we knew it we were at the Ancients. We took them at /p8, just for fun. We managed to easily seperate and kill Talic and Korlic, before killing Madawc center stage under his brothers' gazes. After an easy trek through the WSK, it was time to tackle the minion waves. Raldin's shattering made waves 1 + 2 a non-issue, and Lemon's 80% FR allowed him to tank the next two waves no problem. Wave 5 was tricky as always, but we managed to seperate them fairly easily and take on Lister all alone. Time for the big boss!

The Baal fight was actually really fun. Lots of running around, and a few clones to deal with, but eventually he settled down southeast of his bridge and we were able to focus on him. His drop had nothing that suited Lemon's tastes. Here is what Lemon's LCS looked like upon baal-death:

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After a quick and painless clear of the cows, which netted us this nice little amulet, we were officially done with Normal and looking forward to the nicer outfits that NM promises to provide!

Other Useful Finds:
- Cathan's Ring (Bloody Foothills)
- Manald Heal (Abaddon)
- Sigon's Gloves (Cows)


Destroyer Lemon the Red Avenger Paladin with Raldin the Cold Mage - lvl 48, NM Rogue Encampment

 

[Grisu]

great use of fire sticks

I wonder if you could have pulsed him to death with a Holy Aura, over the course of 1-8 hours or so.

 

[Grisu]

great use of fire sticks

I wonder if you could have pulsed him to death with a Holy Aura, over the course of 1-8 hours or so.

Haha I doubt it with the regen. If it comes up again though I'll give it a shot and let you know

 

[Grisu]

@Vildecor - Yes, considering the rarity that those or any unique gloves would roll made me very shocked and ecstatic after maybe only 3-4 attempts at the two leather types. You definitely have to be careful when equipping rare items, since standing stationary the claw really looked light red, however after running in town and watching the blade swing in the light convinced me that it appeared much more orange than red.

 

[Grisu]

@Pb_pal - Great write up! Good luck in NM.

 

[Grisu]

Nice start, and good to see another entrant!
If you use sven's glide wrapper you can use mouse capture so you can't accidentally click outside the window.

 

[Grisu]

@Ailelya - Welcome to the tournament! Great start, and glad you avoided that death. I've had a few scares like that in my day. Good luck!

--

Table update time!

Table of Heroes:
Forum Name     Class      Colour   Char Name     LVL    ACT     Area
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
felixbavaria   Amazon     Blue     Vanilla       52     A2(NM)  Lut Gholein
Pb_pal         Paladin    Red      Lemon         48     A1(NM)  Rogue Encampment
Vildecor       Amazon     White    Lucent        32     A4      Pandemonium Fortress
Ailelya        Paladin    Blue     Sinine        22     A2      Dry Hills
Southpaw8668   Assassin   Red      Ember         21     A2      Lut Gholein
Interdasting   Druid      Red      Crimson       14     A1      Black Marsh

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

 

[Grisu]

Ember and Gulzar defeated Duriel with the use of Fists of Fire and Lightning and the one point Shadow Warrior. The shadow doesn't kill much but makes a nice distraction in addition to Gulzar. Blazing through the jungle and up to Durance where her first use of Phoenix Strike was put to use with great effect. Still running with duel Talons and finishing with Dragon Claws. Several decent S/U have dropped with the high group MF, however the only piece that is useable thus far without sacrificing a huge chuck of MF is the Sander's Taboo gloves. Ember was previously using the gambled Bloodfist gloves, but elected to switch over once the required level was reached for the added attack speed modifier.
S/U items found:
Civerb's Ward
Angelic Mantle
Bloodthief Brandistock
Milabrega's Orb
Stormguild Shield
Sander's Superstition
Sander's Taboo
I was so busy having fun with the hot keys and attacking that I failed to take any noteworthy screenshots this session. Will try to snap a few next session.

Ember and Gulzar, Level 32, Pandemonium Fortress

 

[Grisu]

@Ailelya - Thanks, I'm starting to enjoy playing Ember as she's ramping up in power. She thought of Sinine when she was awarded the Milabrega's Orb, which was useless for her. [emoji2] God speed in NM brother Paladin!
You are a bit lower than Pb_pal in levels as he generally sticks to /p8 throughout the first two difficulties and tends to do full clears of every possible area. Generally taking on act bosses at /p3 and ancients at /p8. Those could have been key chunks of experience you passed up. I think the experience you get on undead and carver re-kills is minimal at best from what I've noticed during gameplay.
Looks like you have found some nice items that suit your favored color and that's great you were able to upgrade the Bloodrise weapon and add the finishing touches to it!!!

 

[Grisu]

@Southpaw8668 - Glad to see you're enjoying her! Great progress, hopefully the finds keep piling up.

@Ailelya - Awesome progress, and congrats on the Destroyer! Great write-ups too! As Southpaw mentioned, the level disparity is almost certainly due to the /p setting differences. A full-clear of normal on /p8 (/p3 for bosses, anything for ancients) will almost always get you to 48. I stick to these /p settings for normal and NM, and then Hell is usually around /p3-5, depending on the character.

For the record, Re-animating zombie-types DO give their full value of experience (and potentially drops) upon re-killing. Rot Walkers and Reanimated Hordes have the ability to reanimate once, whereas Prowling Dead/Unholy Corpse can reanimate twice and Defiled Warriors three times (though I'm not sure how common it is). I try to be patient and wait it out, but I'm sure I've missed a few re-kills along the way for the sake of progressing. Carvers/Flayers/skeletons etc resurrected by Shamans/Unravellers do not give any extra experience or drops, for what it's worth.

Great job again, good luck in NM

--

Lemon has progressed, though not too much due to being busy for the holiday season, I should have an update soon.

 

[Grisu]

Ember and Gulzar have cruised through the plains of Diablo and placed him to rest at his altar. He was nice enough to gift Ember with some Chance Guards for taking him on at /p8. It was a lengthy fight as the battle with Izual at that difficulty level, but she felt pretty strong up to that point. It took a few trips to town for pots and resurrect Gulzar a couple times, but eventually they all stood together as he collapsed before them. As you can see it was far easier to snap a couple pretty pictures while employing Phoenix Strike than switching back an forth between the Fists skills.







Ember and Gulzar, Level 34, Harrogath

 

[Grisu]

@Ailelya - Ah bummer, it's tough to lose a hero you're enjoying to something like that. Hope you'll elect to roll up another, since your write-ups we're a very nice read. [emoji2]

 

[Grisu]

@Ailelya - Ouch, sorry about the deeds. It's tough to lose a character to something like that, especially when they've been doing so well. I second Southpaw in hoping that you'll re-enter with another char! Your write-ups were very entertaining to read and I enjoyed Sinine's journey.

You mentioned this was your first Destroyer, is that at all or in tournaments? Either way, it deserves another congrats. Here's hoping the next one becomes your first Conqueror and Guardian!

 

[Grisu]

It's allowable by forum rules to keep anything in your gomule stash he found. But anything on the character itself should be deleted (or left forever as a reminder of failure if you want)

 

[Grisu]

The duo was pleased to find that upon entering NM their killing speed hasn't slowed all that noticeably. I'm sure this will change as the CI's start cropping up, but for now they are happy. One thing to note, however, is that Lemon's topaz luck has been absolutely horrid. Upon completing Normal he has only amassed a single Perfect Topaz (and that was thanks to a Gem Shrine!). Needless to say, we're hoping for some better luck with that so we can upgrade our MF equipment sooner rather than later.

As I said, pretty smooth sailing for the start of the act. Blood Raven took a ton of running and chasing, but we eventually tracked her down at the endge of the burial grounds. Coldcrow suffered the safe fate, and we found our way to the Underground Passage before things started to get more difficult. This lady and her friends gave us quite a scare as soon as we got down there:

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Lemon didn't even bother getting close until Raldin had frozen all of her minions. Her cousin was waiting for us down in level 2, and she got the same treatment from Raldin to keep us safe. Last but not least before saving Cain, Treehead was beaten to death from the other side of a fence, and Lemon took a moment of silence for Sinine.

It seemed our Topaz luck had turned, and we had cubed ourselves a couple more PTopazes at this point, so it was time to upgrade Lemon's armour. There was an immediate increase in drops, and almost right away we got a useful one; Griswold's Edge! After clearing out the Black Marsh he upgraded the sword to give himself a nice weapon upgrade, and he was finally starting to look as good as he felt:

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It's a nice upgrade in killing power (and a GREAT upgrade in the looks department!). The only drawback is the KB, but with Raldin keeping everything frozen all the time, it only becomes an issue against champs/bosses, so it's well worth it for the added power. Feeling quite confident in his new outfit he moved on, getting a Hel from the Countess along the way. We met our first Cold-Immune boss of NM in the Pit. The CE was a pain, but Lemon got the job done without much of a headache.

Turns out the Knockback on Lemon's sword is actually a good thing! The fact that it only affects bosses/champs (as long as the normal monsters are frozen by Raldin) is actually quite handy, and can be used effectively to keep us safe. See here as what should have been a pretty scary Smith was backed up against a torch and completely nullified:

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The rest of the treck through the jails and Catacombs was easy and uneventful, aside from Pitspawn who gave us a bit of trouble with his usual Cursed/CE combo. Luckily his extra modifier for NM was useless, he should be a challenge in Hell, if we get there. Eventually we made our way to Andariel, buffed with antidotes, and took on the big gal. We managed to get Raldin in a position where her poison didn't hit him (although the screenie doesn't do the greatest job depicting that..), which meant that Lemon could just bear down and hack away:

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The fight wasn't overly dangerous, though it did require a few cautionary big purples and a pile of healers/mana pots. The drop was terrible, but at least we got that last level out of it!


Other Useful Finds:
- 29% Nagelring (Black Marsh) - nice!
- Cathan's Ring (Pit 1)
- Cleglaw's Tooth (Jail 1) - This completes one of the two red sets for Lemon which is pretty cool. It also gives us a sweet CB option for boss fights on switch. Pretty happy with that.
- Milabrega's Shield (Catacombs 1) - Too bad it's blue, we would kill for the extra MF right now!


Destroyer Lemon the Red Avenger Paladin with Raldin the Cold Mage - lvl 53, NM Lut Gholein

 

[Grisu]

Congrats on the Griswolds!
When I found it in the S/U tourney i noticed how Red it was and thought how great it would be for you over here.

 

[Grisu]

Very nice write up @Pb_pal and wonderful find!!!
If Ember finds either of those two sets she'll probably change to W/S set up instead of the duel claws. Unless we can finally come across some exceptional or elite talons we can socket or roll for a red modifier. God speed on your journey and stay safe.

 

[Grisu]

Act II is done. No major gear upgrades, but in one of the false tombs we found Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest, which Razan is eagerly awaiting to use once we hit level 66.

Vanilla and Razan, level 59, Kurast Docks (NM)