My Travincal-running Hammerdin's merc survives well with an ethereal "Prudence" Dusk Shroud (33@, 17 MDR, 2232 Def) and a perfect Chromatic (30) Circlet of Atlas (30).
I'd like to second the use of vamp gaze and/or gladiators bane for the MDR they provide. Can also consider steel shade for the integer fire absorb which will have the hydras healing your merc.
I would just love for any of these to actually drop for me, so I'd have the CHOICE of using them. Right now, Toranaga just ticked eighty-eight (I really need to sit down and write a brief intro and add him to the list) and his merc both still have Lionheart armor, and the merc wears Tal's mask.
My Travincal-running Hammerdin's merc survives well with an ethereal "Prudence" Dusk Shroud (33@, 17 MDR, 2232 Def) and a perfect Chromatic (30) Circlet of Atlas (30).
That was my hope when I put this team together for Travincal after reading about last year's RFL. It seems to work well. Both Paladin and merc were level 83 when I started calling upon the Council; both are level 86 now. IIRC, the merc has only died twice in that time, and once was purely due to a colossal brain failure by the driver.
So after hitting the neat 300 mark, I concluded the 15%ed from a superior base would only provide a very marginal improvement compared to a non-superior base; and rolled my 3rd Faith. Obviously I was very happy with this roll. =D
I was also quickly rewarded with HRs. And with the Ber from some levels ago, I have enough runes for yet another roll of Faith.
The Lo also let me reroll my Fortitude.
Much better!
Things progressed well, sneaking in 500k~1mil of exp during one or two 30 min session per weekday. At 1.5m exp/h I was very eager to speed up my runs further; and I was thoroughly enjoying myself testing various setups with the items I had on hand. The enjoyment lasted short though, when I ran out of possible variations; and I started looking towards builds I haven't tested yet - bearzons, spearzons, grief on switch, etc.
Not wanting to use up my last respec, I wanted to 'test' the builds via backing up my save files. But, a quick discussion with @maxicek and @Kitteh made me realize that it was against the forum rules - thanks btw you two. And it actually turned out for the better, because I was able to hold back the temptation and still allow myself to use the excuse of staying 'pure bowa'.
Which leads to earlier last week.
Determined to stay pure bowa, I decided to used up the last respec to fine-tune the build.
I dropped...
Valk and Decoy - because mobs melted in /p1 and Diablo completely ignores them
Penetrate - because Faith has ITD and GA is autohit
Pierce - because high level of MS meant I could 'simulate' pierce by controlling the spread
Instead, I used the extra skill points on...
MS - for the reasons mentioned in Pierce
Avoid/Evade - because Diablo always targets merc so I only need to dodge the Fire Nova
Stat wise, I went 100 Str to equip my Fortitude and rest into Dex, because I never got hit.
All reasoning were solid; and off I went.
And boy was I wrong.
No recastable tank meant I had to backtrack to my merc twice and often
MS was wayyy too high level and went OOM trying to clear the last couple stragglers
GA has a 'skill threat' of 4*slvl which made Diablo target me instead of the merc
Avoid/Evade was essentially useless, cause I was running away from the Lightning hose instead of Fire Nova
Sub 500-life meant a tiny slip-up resulted in a death
The weekend was utter failure with total 3 deaths and only 1 corpse recovery. I lost pretty much all progress for all of last month.
Oof. Big mistake on the respec.
No way to recoup from the situation, I bit the bullet and pushed on to the Ancients. The fight was absurdly easy with GA and Cleg's; and WSK was terrifying with sub-1000 life and no lit absorb. Decoy would've been lovely here - though I guess I wouldn't have a reason to push that far if I did have decoy available...
Anywho... Throne room was easy. Baal was easier. And now my bowa's a Matriarch.
The thing is though... I had to repeat that process 16 times on p1/3 before Baal coughed up an Essence.
Here's the current stats/skills after recouping from a horrible, horrible week.
I have essentially unlimited respecs now, so I fine-tuned this build for the items I have available immediately.
Stats
100 Str (Ancient Armor) - 75 base + 10 from WT + 15 from Nos
132 Dex (Diamond bow) - 70 base + 25 from Cat's Eye + 19 from RF+ 18 from RF (LL/ML covered from Nos/Circlet)
Rest Vit
Skills
20 MA - PI solution + Diablo
13 MS - With 4 skills from current gear, I'm at a comfortable 17 MS
20 Crit - tiny extra %s do help
20 Penetrate - Moved GA points to here so I can hit Diablo a couple % better with MA
13 Avoid / 12 Evade - 60% 50% dodge
7(to be 9) Decoy - castable tank, next 2 points to go in here.
Inventory
full of Inertia - missing 6 sc of Inertia to max out inventory (the 2 lc's to be replaced are also of inertia's)
Gheeds - cause empty space
Notes
Full Inertia > Full Sharp/Fine - of the p1/7 runs, most of the time is spent clearing RoF and CS. Frw helps much more than the extra damage does
Cats Eye > Amp - same reasoning as above. Damage increase from Amp does not provide nearly enough improvement on run time.
Currently at about 1.5m~ exp/h. I doubt it'll improve much until I find a next key upgrade.
Don't want WF cause it will force Diablo to always target me
Wishlist
3os/30frw tiara/diadem - Current 15ias/30frw circlet only allows for 65%ias breakpoint. extra 30% will let me use GMB for higher damage and keep the same frw.
2os/30frw circlet - Will net me extra 20% ias via use of Mav's belt. I currently need the 10%ias from Nos to hit 7fpa
Steelshade - Will let merc tank Diablo much better. This will allow some gear switches, namely Amp on bowa and hone sundan on merc for high and faster CB. Though I'm not sure if the 30frw lost is worth the damage from Amp and CB.
eth Reapers - Will use socket quest on it and use Ber for CB.
15%ed Superior 4os Diamond Bow - cause I want to roll a perfect Faith
Steelshade + eReapers/Ber + Fortitude = current end-game goal for merc
@Gynli, re the respec: "I'm sorry things didn't turn out as you had hoped." But thanks for the splendid update, and congratulations on the finds, progress, and rolls.
Forumite Character SC/HC Class Level Exp Date E/S S/U Grail Deaths Hours
--------------- --------------- ----- ----- ----- ---- ---------- --- ---- ----- ------ -----
RIP Kaira_II HC Sin 95 2.55 2018-09-06 Yes - 399 - -
T72on1 ShouldBeEasy HC Pala 95 2.52 2019-01-04 Yes lots 320 NA 103
Kitteh Gwynt HC Druid 87 XXXX 2018-11-07 Yes - - - -
Bewitch itsreal HC Sorc 87 1.xx 2018-04-24 No - - - -
MizzouFTW Pure HC Necro 86 1.15 2018-01-10 Yes - - 1 -
Vildecor Celia HC Ama 84 0.99 2018-05-30 Yes 125 97 1 -
coju NintyNine_orRiP HC Sorc 81 0.74 2016-04-07 Yes - - 1 -
RIP Attila HC Barb 78 0.59 2018-09-26 Yes - 73 - -
TwentyMuleTeam Valus HC Barb 76 0.48 2016-10-27 Yes - - 1 -
Pb_pal Stevesy HC Pala 76 0.48 2017-06-19 Yes - - 1 -
weezaard Cypher SC Druid 66 0.00 2018-02-21 Yes - - 20+ -
Tenecabo OldShatterhand HC Druid 49 0.04 2016-06-16 Yes - 0 1 -
Pijus Pyrestarter HC Druid 36 0.00 2018-05-21 Yes - - 1 -
coju fB HC Sorc 29 0.00 2016-04-09 Yes 1 1 1 2
Kitteh Verallus HC Druid 26 0.00 2016-03-25 No - - 1 -
logoutzero Rolex HC Barb 21 0.00 2016-03-26 Yes 0 0 1 1
So finally had the time and not being tired to push thru the council to openup durance of hate. Then went thru all three levels slowly and carefully. Only dolls level 1 which was ok. WP was mile away from Lvl 3 entrance which was annoying. Multiple Dark lord boss packs in the entrance section and into the first council member. This one was conviction equipped too which was lol as someone fart merc die....
Was ok as i could do Sparky on my own mostly. Other two were fine with some dragging away from more lords then that left Meph. He splatted merc once but then i attacked for a bit then kited off to replenish life. Then amusingly for the first time ever i used the moat trick and down he went no trouble at all. Nothing dropped of note though the git.
Onto Act 4 next which could be fun or not depending on how many cold immunes i run into, oh and the always takes bloody ages to kill Izzy. Maybe look at three sessions for Act 4, Izzy and access down to river of flame, then go get some crap rune, then finally Diablo.
I'm glad to join you once again, after a long break !
It's still a pleasure to read your updates (between 2 IP Banned bug ) !
I feel the urge to play again to my favorite game, with a new computer, and no backup of my old characters (I should get them back one day, they are sleeping on my hard drive, somewhere).
I won't have more than a few hours a week to play, so I probably won't reach lvl99 ever, but anyway, I'm back to business.
Before I sign in I still have to decide which character to play : I can't decide between a sorceress, a zealot, a frenzy or WW barb, a bowazon, a kicker assassin. Or another one I should try ?
Feel free to let me know who do you want to see die and complain about bad drops ?
@Hutton @buckcrazy @Zyr @sir_cyclops I'm confused on this MDR at trav situation. It seems you all are using it to great effect, but I thought MDR on merc didn't do much at trav. The hydras should apply ~28 dmg to you (after the pvp reduction) and ~160 to merc. And MDR is applied before resistances. So that's why I thought MDR at trav rocked for the player and didn't do too much for the merc. If it works great on merc too, that's a gamechanger and I'll be making a prudence asap, but I'd still like to know where I went wrong on the dmg to merc calculation.
Edit: and check out this thread/post if you're interested LINK. So I'm just really interested in whats going on here. Thanks!
@Luhkoh, I'm not the sort of player who calculates such matters; my custom is, "Here's the best I think I can do with what I have available; let's throw it at the wall, and see if it sticks." But here's what I think may be happening:
1. I should have stated upfront that I'm playing my Travincal Hammerdin on battle.net, non-Ladder. Both Paladin and merc are given BO by a Barb at level 41, which I suspect is rather higher than available in SP even with a time-traveled CtA. This merc has 1870 HP before BO, 4768 with BO. That has to be a major factor.
2. I think the resistances from "Prudence" are at least important as the MDR. At level 86, the merc has 53@ naked. With 33@ from the armor and 30@ from his circlet, he has 116@. If my understanding is correct (always a dubious matter), level 8 Conviction from a Council member reduces that to 36@. After MDR peels part of the Fire (or Lightning) damage away, the merc still takes damage-- but slowly enough that my aged reflexes and fumbling fingers still, usually, manage to feed him a purple before he croaks.
@Zyr That would all make sense, if it weren't for the fact that @sir_cyclops told me his merc died immediately with fort on and survives fine with gbane! Haha I'm not sure what could be going on there.
@Luhkoh my understanding was that mdr is calculated before the 4x dmg against mercs. So if u can negate all 28 base damage, it should do 0 damage. -- is it 28 base?
Also is hydra damage purely magic? Or is it a mix of magic and physical?
If the latter, you can stack pdr and/or mdr and the residual dr from either will rollover to the other. I.e. if hydra does part magic and part physical, 28pdr and 28mdr shud work out to be the same
Hydra damage is fire damage which also falls within the category of magic damage. That’s why eg dual Dwar Star makes a player immune to it.
I have never tried an MDR Merc setup but Steelshade helps him so it only makes sense MDR does, too. The PvP penalty which applied to the player character reduces the damage taken (ie 28 is not what hydras originally deal), Merc always takes the full hit.
@Gynli Very interesting. That would indeed explain it, and I that is an area I haven't researched as well as the dmg/resist order and such. But since the dmg gets reduced by a factor when it is applied to a player rather than the merc getting penalized like he does with act bosses, I would think he would receive the 160 dmg initially.
@ffs steelshade has integer absorb which is applied after resistances rather than before it like mdr, which makes it way better (why tgods is so ridiculous against souls, but gladiators bane not so much).
@Luhkoh Yes Merc takes the full amount as I’ve said. You’re right of course that absorb is much better as you’ve said for him. I thought about it from the player's character's perspective where MDR and integer absorb only differ in terms of negating vs. healing. But MDR still provides some mitigation to Merc if nothing like GA/Kira/Steelshade is available on top of 75 FR.
Bottom line though it’s hard to make a Merc really safe for Trav without those typically used items... Probably makes sense to just Meph for Kira/GA just as much as trying different solutions.
@ffs Haha fair enough. I know I won't be fitting in ~1000 meph runs before round two though. And right, I would think the 17mdr from prudence would reduce merc dmg from hydras by ~10-15% which as you say is still noticeable. I just thought something else may be going on when sir_cyclops told me his merc died quick with fort and survived forever with prudence, so I got interested. But I know him IRL so we'll test it some more before round 2 and report back!
y, finally lvl 98. After hitting lvl up i checked runes and bases for botd, well, i had the 2 chams for the Zod and 9 mals to upgrade them to a vex and still have 1 mal left to make another Ist rune (by upping 2x um) for delirium on merc.
Bases i had 2x 0 sox eth gpa and 1x 0 sox cb. Luckily one of the GPAs turned 6 os, rest didnt.
So i made the botd in that gpa, its 380 ed, so pretty okay.
Respect to conc barb, and im hitting the 78 ias cap with 20 ias gloves (i changed LoH to crafted ones with 20 ias, 2ll, 10 cb, 14 life, 13 mana, 24 fire res)
i could hit the next ias cap by using a ias amulet and socketing ias in gulli but i dont have a highlords and so far i dont wanna use a catseye. so i stay on metalgrid.
Also changed a duallech ring to a fcr ring with 10 fc, 94 ar, 28 life, 19 mana, 29 fire res.
On merc i changed kiras to delirium and replaced ias jool in reapers with a eth rune (stayin on 42 ias cap with treachery anyway)
Also changed dual hoto to dual wizzy (or suicide branch) on 2. slot
Maybe ill also try a a5 merc with lawbringer somewhen, we'll see.
Drops on baals where: Dwarf, Nightwing 12/13, jalals 199%, +3 summon necro 89 life amulet, eth spirit ward, tal armor
this are btw some runs how i run atm with the botd gpa. when i started i had max howl, but somehow didnt like it, so i respect to max leap but i dont rly use it a lot as well. mostly, as u see, i just teleport on nihla and kill him.
dno how much better it will/would be with grief and beast but i guess somewhen ill do the lk stuff again to get that ber.
Any suggestions in general? for me it feels pretty okay actually.
Here’s the Conc Barb by scrcrw for reference with Grief/Beast BAs. It does seem a little faster, but you get major style points for going with BotD! Also he was using ATMA bugged stuff and a beta Delirium for non stop Confuse procs.. so it’s not that easy to compare.
I am surprised you are running with Merc – is that really safe enough in the long run? I saw in one run with Vipers that it can work, and you don’t need to abort necessarily (around 2:30 in the vid). Still I’m wondering how often you encounter dangerous situations with Vipers. There was one close call when teleporting into clouds ofc but I mean generally at his platform.
I think I theorized at some point about a Grief/Last Wish setup for Barb to run without Merc... also not that easy on rune wealth though hehe. Guess I’d be scared with a melee char to run with Merc, but maybe it’s fine.
@sir_cyclops No corpses are fine. But Viper clouds deal insane damage when standing too close to Merc because they apply their damage every other frame instead of just once per collision. See this post.
this are btw some runs how i run atm with the botd gpa. when i started i had max howl, but somehow didnt like it, so i respect to max leap but i dont rly use it a lot as well. mostly, as u see, i just teleport on nihla and kill him.
dno how much better it will/would be with grief and beast but i guess somewhen ill do the lk stuff again to get that ber.
Any suggestions in general? for me it feels pretty okay actually.
Zticazzy used a merc too on perkele, his 99er Barb. So I assume it's fine. The encounters you have with Nihl when you spawn Vipers also seem to indicate that you are leeching fast enough, and over 4K hitpoints is quite the margin of course. Cursed and Vipers might still need an immediate S&E though. How much straight DR do you have?
I don't know the exact gear for perkele, but I'm pretty sure he kept on using the dual BotD for the last level. But overall your kill speed looks very solid. I mean, my Fire Sorc killed him faster when he wasn't FE, but when he was (breakable) FE, she maybe even was slower, and you don't seem to have a very long S&E lag, so I think you should still be able to hit 3M xp/hour. Have you kept track of that yet?
Good luck !!! And try to smile when streaming . It's only a bit over 10K runs to get to 99 you know ...
@T72on1 I think perkele used offhand beast while specced to conc. No idea what the reason would be that beast would be better for conc but not ww. Ah yeah I guess because you dont hit with both weapons with conc so you just want the aura? I feel like that would be less dmg than a 2h botd though. Not sure? Maybe ztc just didn't consider making a THIRD botd? Interesting stuff though. I'm newer to the barb mechanics.
Hey, thanks everybody for the comments, much appreciated!
@NanoMist every item posted in this forum over the last months that is not listed in this page is gone forever. My biggest regret was this beauty and a perfect blue cold facet to go with it... those would've made blizz sorcs very happy. Shame also on selling two Azurewraths, just imagine the possibilities in AT. Oh yeah, and I also sold an extra enigma BP I had after rerolling it with another set of Jah Ith Ber because the first roll didn't please me. It turned out to have the same exact def, so it had to go. Yeah, I'm a spoiled little brat, I know.
@Brak Indeed! When I was playing other chars I was usually very lucky with LOs, I guess this evens things out.
@Cyrax there you go!
Yes, I respecced before posting, and I also sold some garbage I wasn't going to use anyway, so even though the stash looks quite empty now, I really prefer it that way Basically I decided to show the char as a WW barb because this is how he fought his way to the top, with the only exception of levels 1-29 and 98 of course, but since you seem to be interested in my 98 settings: Conc and its synergies were maxed (or close to maximum), axe mastery and BO maxed, then 1 pt into Find Item (in case you need to hork corpses to make body retrievals easier), shout, resists, extra speed, and WW to make runs for essences and rejuvs quicker. You see? Technically still being a whirler even at 98! Every single hardpoint went into Vitality, ebotd and the rest of items were giving enough STR and DEX to wear the whole gear (strength bug ftw). Delirium is now stashed, but as @Gripphon said it was used as merc helm; the only other differences in gear were gores, off-hand beast and a magic amulet of everlasting (readout here), which was a true godsend against vipers.
Regarding your locking problems, I had those too, some people howl but I prefer to scout the screen for that single pixel belonging to Nihlathak's body another thing you can do is to use leap as left-click attack on switch as I did to separate him from his minions (Nihla is not affected by knockback), or just kill the enemies that are between you and your target - if you're going to use Grief this is probably the best option, those minions are rather weak and Grief rather OP, so it won't take much to dispatch them.
And finally, yes, Nihla is quite fast. I was averaging 3m exp per hour, with sub-optimal gear if you consider the goodies RWM has to offer, so the way to 99 can be even faster than that. And he can drop Tyrael's with abysmal odds! What are you waiting for?
Another devi update! She is level 90 now! Mostly from cows in RFL round 2, but also from some pindle running.
I'm not sure what my last update was, but I found a goldwrap which allows her to hit 102 fcr bp and the fastest trap laying speed simultaneously (along with the skills and benefits of maras, enigma, and shako). She found a bk ring pretty early into rfl round 2, which is awesome. I definitely wanted a skill ring for her. She also found a 25 life shadow disc skiller. Meh, wish it were traps!
A bigger update is that she found an eth CV, which I took to norm and used her last socket quest on. Here's the base, the second roll, and mercs dmg with might+fort:
When I went back to hell, I rolled a sweet cow map! When running pindle for gold (and figured hitting level 90 would make for a good part of this update), I found this baby, which will help with round 2 of rfl
Alright guys, thanks for the help.
Well, i guess ill go on a bit like that until i get a bit bored of nihla, and then im gonna do the lk stuff i guess, we'll see^^
I tried without merc as well, also tried a5 with lawbringer, but it ended up that i like it with a2 most.
every now and then i skip a run, but its rly not that often.
first 20 mios are done, not too bad
@sir_cyclops huh, u rly used a socket q for a cv^^ think i wouldnt do that, even if i dont really need 3 socketquests^^
@Bewitch yeah, I’ve got no use for the third socket q and it enabled me to do better in round two of RFL. Also, I can’t be sure how long it’ll take me to find another eth elite 4 os polearm. If I find one today, I’ll be a little bummed I “wasted” it. But if it takes me a month, I’ll be pretty happy with my decision.
Edit: I meant to say better in the rest of round 1 rfl. I will be using reapers for round 2
Still don’t get all these "OMG must not use CV" reactions. Yes Thresher/GT are faster but CV/CA can easily hit the BP just one FPA Jab below and they have higher damage. Of the 5 Infinities I made, 3 were in CA/CV, and I don’t regret it. For my 99er I made one in CV and a second one in Thresher for Nihl running but that was really just min-maxing for this type of run and being bored. CA/CV is higher overall DPS on the 35 IAS BP (which happens to be the strongest overall setup with Andy & Fortitude). This thread has all the relevant information.
The only downside a CV has is the high strength requirement, which makes it harder to share between mercs. But for an untwinked character, if the merc already has the 200 strength that are required, then there's nothing wrong with using a CV over the other polearms. And as @ffs already mentioned, in most typical merc setups CA and CV have the highest DPS.
Ah yeah I thought that’s weird on an untwinked char indeed, but I guess Trapper doesn’t need all socket quests with Hoto/Spirit setup. IIRC @PhineasB or @NanoMist also used Larzuk to socket a CV on their Trapper. But yeah if you find two +5 LS claws after that, that could sting.
Ah yeah I thought that’s weird on an untwinked char indeed, but I guess Trapper doesn’t need all socket quests with Hoto/Spirit setup. IIRC @PhineasB or @NanoMist also used Larzuk to socket a CV on their Trapper. But yeah if you find two +5 LS claws after that, that could sting.
@sir_cyclops Personally I haven’t played a Trapper with dual claw setup yet because I don’t have 2 great claws. And Hoto/Spirit or dual Spirit are good of course.
But if I had two good +5/6 LS claws I’d happily drop to 65 FCR. (For example with 2/20 circlet, FCR craft ammy, Arach & Magefist.) Up to +12 LS from dual claw makes a pretty huge difference, and one FCR BP is really the only thing you lose. Could even drop half the skiller inventory to include more MF/life and still deal higher damage, plus 2-4 open sockets on the claws? Yes please.
Ah yeah I thought that’s weird on an untwinked char indeed, but I guess Trapper doesn’t need all socket quests with Hoto/Spirit setup. IIRC @PhineasB or @NanoMist also used Larzuk to socket a CV on their Trapper. But yeah if you find two +5 LS claws after that, that could sting.
Nano used a socket quest, I think. Mercy found a 4os eth Thresher early on, which was quite nice indeed (especially after wasting one on Angelic armor!). But, yeah, in the untwinked setting, I think using the socket quests that aren't needed for end-game to speed up building of key runewords is worth it. My pally actually used a socket quest on a shield to finally get Spirit after way too many failed cube socket attempts Whatever helps with motivation and focus, unless that third socket quest is needed for end-game gear.
After finishing half a set with Quinta for RFL Rd 1, I went back to XP runs. Pestilence is moving toward 3.2B, but Death also got some runs, with another major milestone!
Prior to RFL starting, he was about a tenth of the way, picking up an Arkaine’s (1os), getting ingredients to up his SoE, and getting Set Corona #2. We’d rolled three plain PBs along the way, without success, but they were falling at a faster rate again. Then, after one more unsuccessful cube attempt, a grey PB fell, and it was a winner:
We got ready and rolled Grief #2, with really good results
He’s now a little more than a third into the level, allowing p7 runs now, and I’m thinking he may get to 93 prior to start of RFL Rd 2. Here’s hoping he gets a nice high rune drop along the way!
I've always gone C/C on B.net because it was far easier to get a hold of +5 or +6 claws. I'd take C/C over HotO/SS and HotO/Spirit all day everyday. If you're SC you can use CTA/Spirit for teleport.
With regards to C/C setup, it's incredibly unlikely to achieve on untwinked. I myself have a few hundred hours claw shopping and no dice. In reality my claw shopping hours are probably muuuuuuuch higher because I've always been a fan of C/C and have searched for them even as far back as 1.10. Never even found rare +5 claws, unfortunately.
I've always gone C/C on B.net because it was far easier to get a hold of +5 or +6 claws. I'd take C/C over HotO/SS and HotO/Spirit all day everyday. If you're SC you can use CTA/Spirit for teleport.
With regards to C/C setup, it's incredibly unlikely to achieve on untwinked. I myself have a few hundred hours claw shopping and no dice. In reality my claw shopping hours are probably muuuuuuuch higher because I've always been a fan of C/C and have searched for them even as far back as 1.10. Never even found rare +5 claws, unfortunately.
I disagree, thresher is better. CV has high strength requirement and that slower speed, whilst you can still hit the BP, limits your options. Your merc is not there for damage, he is there to take hits and provide auras/curses. You want him hitting as often as possible. Now, if you already have Infinity, that is a different issue and in that case I think it becomes useful to have the option of a CV for when that suits better. If you can only make one Infinity though, thresher > CV. Especially when you play HC and are liable to deeds the bloody thing a week after you make it *grumble*
Well it’s not like slower bases don’t trigger auras and curses. They take a split second longer. Likewise, higher damage from CA/CV is very little. The point is differences between bases are very small either way, and that’s why there isn’t a wrong choice really. Plus in case of Infinity, it’s 99% about having Conviction, and higher/lower damage or faster/slower triggering of Merc's inherent aura make close to zero gameplay difference.
If you’re really into min-maxing, you might as well say Thresher is a bad choice, because GT offers 0.5 higher base damage at the same WSM. Generally that's about the scale here in terms of actual gameplay impact IMO.
After a bit of thought I decided I had relatively crap twinking gear so why bother. The will be a fairly standard hammerdin so aside from enigma/CtA, the gear is relatively cheap so we'll just see how this goes.
@jjscud Welcome and good luck! Hammerdin has a lot of advantages - u dont need to rely on LK to farm the runes, you can rush the char directly to CS and farm runes there, while getting tons of xp aswell.
He just recently hit lvl 95 (throwing down the glove for @Hutton), still running baal for exp.
My usual run is P3 travi, bosspacks along the way on WSK, clearing throne room and switching to P8 for the waves (P1 on second wave) and P3 for baal. Sometimes I add CS, but I dont feel very comfortable around De Seis, so its not a staple part of my runs.
Blackwell is still a WW barb, I do enjoy it more than frenzy for now, even tho manaburn bosspacks are annoying - exactly as @Bewitch mentioned.
I am still hoping to get my hands on Highlords, but on the other hand I will really miss those 30@ from Maras. I have no luck with shimmering charms, so I will maybe return back to LK to farm some of those.
Some minor drops along the way:
edit: I just noticed a significant drop in XP gained for 1 baal run - from 1,5M to 900k The first half of the level, which as we all know is the bigger one, will be pretty slow for me - I would say about 5-6 months
Yeah, it is good to see that people are still going at it. I had to take a break from games for a while (I do this from time to time), but when I get home from work in two weeks I hope to pick up Natur and continue the journey. Godspeed, travelers!
Pestilence is getting close to level 98, with a nice milestone of 3.2B. He got the next 3M to 97.9, and should finish up the level this weekend, I think. I thought about holding off on the update til pinging, but the 3._ milestones are nice occasions
Drops were better than the last quarter level. Obviously, almost immediately after finding my first overall Earth Shifter, he got a second one, this one +296% ED. So I guess a Druid is in the plans eventually . . . .
Other drops meriting screen shots were Greyform, Lo #3, a 5/4 poison RBF, Griffon’s #3, the eth Hone Sundan noted in Item Find thread, and IK armor #2 for 97-98. He also picked up plenty of other high TC S/U, including another Set CB, Trang helm, Unique Champion Axe, 2os HHG, Tal’s Armor, Set Diadem, and set Corona #3. He also got a +10 life Sounding skiller.
I am mixing in some RFL Rd 1 runs with Quinta, a little more than 13 hours in, so likely not finishing the set. Then it will be focused on Pestilence to 98, and hopefully getting Death to 93 before start of RFL Rd 2.
@PhineasB Did I just read 'Griffon's #3'? I so hate you . Congrats on the progress, you never cease to amaze me.
@jjscud Welcome to the fun. Hammerdin is a very good choice. As already pointed out, you don't even need to do LK if that's not your cup of tea. It's the most efficient way, but with some not too hard to get gear, you can easily level at Eldritch and then farm xp and runes at Travincal and/or CS.
You mind sending the next one of those Griffon's my way and we can just keep it between us? Zic is almost 40% of the way through 98 and still never found a golden diadem.
So I have an excellent LK map on arkana and am not willing to reroll maps because of it. However I really could use reapers for round 2 of rfl on my other characters. So I've been doing mephy runs with arkana on a 25+ teleport map (while using long tele trick) just in case this would happen:
Woo! That was shako in <50 runs, and arachs in <300.
@MizzouFTW the lightning is negative now too since I replaced my fcr/light res ring with a nagel post-arachs But I have a moat between me and mephy. Side note though, I did a few AT runs with these resists, having forgotten to swap my gear around to where I have about 30 all res, and could hardly tell the difference.
@MizzouFTW the lightning is negative now too since I replaced my fcr/light res ring with a nagel post-arachs But I have a moat between me and mephy. Side note though, I did a few AT runs with these resists, having forgotten to swap my gear around to where I have about 30 all res, and could hardly tell the difference.
Seeing as I've spent the last 20 hours of playing murdering cows on my Javazon, I suspect the gauntlet will be remaining on the floor!
I'm about 40% of the way through 94. Hoping to hit 95 in time for RFL Round 2 in which I'll be running the barb.
My Baal settings are p1 clear, p8 wave 1, p1 wave 2, p8 wave 3 and 4, p5 wave 5, and p3 Baal.
The final wave pretty consistently rinse my merc on higher player settings- pretty sure it's because p5 is the threshold for my hits putting them into hit recovery.
What gear are you running on your merc?
I'm pretty tempted to use my final socket quest to put an ED jewel in my Arreat's*...
*I know G-Face is better, but I want to look like a Barbarian not some jive turkey.
The final wave pretty consistently rinse my merc on higher player settings- pretty sure it's because p5 is the threshold for my hits putting them into hit recovery.
Well, my merc has actually rly bad equipment - non eth reapers, duriels and crown of thieves.
He doesnt have much troubles with p8 lister wave, unless they are extra strong. Or cursed. Or might/fana... or any combination of them Then it takes quite a lot of teleporting and splitting the group.
I think that helmet is ok spot for socket, I actually made one socket to guillame, keeping the rest for final respec to conc barb. I found decent all res - pdr circlet, hopefully ill be able to make 2 sockets in it...
Big update for Devi! tldr: she's 91 and she's fully built Here's the real update:
When @Luhkoh and I first restarted back in January (Feb 1 for me), we were really excited about RFL. As I settled into a Non-sorc UT99er (Devi), I was obviously targeting enigma first. I had a crazy dream of a lucky jah drop so that I could only farm two surs for enigma, which would allow for much better RFL running. And then naybe I could make it my goal to complete infinity by the end of RFL round 3.
As you’ve already seen in previous updates, I had a Jah drop at pindle, and I made enigma before RFL started. I thought this would make getting an infinity by the end of RFL quite possible. Devi also didn't have a hoto or cta going into this round of RFL. One other thing is that needed a 4 os eth elite polearm for infinity, which I hoped to find in cows as well.
My first HR find was a Ber, which is honestly just a huge continuation of Devi's good luck. Maybe I'd pull off this infinity goal. I found a few eth threshers and CAs but none rolled 4os, so when I found this eth CV, I took it to normal to use my last socket quest, as mentioned in a previous update. She later found a Sur... and I did an hour or two more of cows before realizing I had a week left before the end of RFL, and if I could get an infinity with a Sur from LK, it would increase my odds of getting points. So I went to LK and... found this beauty. So now you can see the glory:
Damage with fort + infinity + might
I made a hoto at some point during round 2 as well:
37! Yeah baby!
So, with my infinity made, I was ready to finish up my last 2 hours of RFL round 1. This dropped on MY VERY FIRST RUN:
Seems like d2rng rewarded my patience and decision to make my infinity in the middle of the round.
Non-rune finds in round 1 + LK + some mephy + some baal were pretty nice. I found a bk ring early on in the cows. I later found a raven frost. I found a trap skiller with life.
After finishing up round 1, I look at all my runes in devi's stash and realized I was only mal + ist away from CTA if I cubed up nearly everything, haha. So I ran hell countess and found um + mal + loads of other cube fodder that eventually added up to CTA. Check out the stash of crap that was needed to get to a single Ohm:
And check out the last piece of super critical gear for devi:
3 bo is respectable. With enigma, bk, maras, spirit, shako... it's like 13 BO or something.
So here’s the crazy things that have happened in 2 months:
I made a perfect enigma in a perfect mp. I made an infinity (and I still hadn't found a single vex or ohm... in fact, I still haven't! I cubed up for both hoto and cta.). I made hoto. I made cta...
And I did some baal so that devi hit level 91. Here's a screenshot of her wearing her "do anything gear". 3100+ life, 800+ mana, high resistances, 200+ mf. 102 fcr. fastest trap laying speed. Merc has ebug fort, ral andys, and that beautiful infinity. Trappers are the bomb.
@sir_cyclops Wow, you have all THAT equipment in just 2 months? It took me the same amount of time of excesive LK running to get "just" the Enigma What you have pulled of - that is what I call luck from out of this world... CG.
@Quinneczech she’s definitely been lucky! But I have also exclusively played her. And I have been playing between 10 and 16 hours a week. Probably closer to 16 usually.
@sir_cyclops Congrats on getting the trapper fully geared. I also love the excitement, and hope the rest of her journey is as enjoyable as gearing her up. I know I had a blast with my trapper.
* * *
I would appreciate feedback from the untwinked 99er crowd: Death is nearing 93 on Pit runs and will get there before being my RFL Rd 2 entry. I will have to roll Council maps because the current Pit map doesn't work for Trav. So I was thinking about using a socket quest while I'm at it.
The merc's Vamp gaze seems like a good candidate. But looking at the German weapon speed calculator I am not sure the extra attack speed will be worth it relative to chance of getting Andy's down the road and having option of socketing that instead (I was saving third socket quest for Reaper's on the chance he finds a high damage or eth version). Jab would gain half a frame with IAS jewel, and regular attack would gain a frame. Proc'ing decrep faster is obviously better.
Gear: I have the 1os Crown of Ages, with 14% DR and the extra resists, and it would allow me to save the socket. Vamp has 14 mdr and 20% DR, so CoA has lower DR and doesn't contribute to mdr. Armor options are Duriel's and Gladiator's Bane, with GBane likely willing out due to mdr/dr package, and either giving CBF. The two jewels are RJoFs, one the damage version and the other the fire resist version.
I'm leaning CoA with the resist RJoF and GBane. That would leave damage RJoF available for Guillame's on Death himself, although I'd likely hold off on that for now (currently has 15@ jewel with +strength). I plan on running Council until he can make Enigma and then Baal runs to 98 (maybe some CS for a change up) before Nihl for 98-99.
Thanks in advance for advice!
Pestilence is less than 10M from 98 and, as noted, Death is getting close to 93. But I will be out of town Monday and Tuesday and then again all next weekend through the first part of the next week. So I'm still hoping to ping with both before I leave next weekend and then get a full RFL set with Death over the remaining two weeks of Round 2.
I'm pretty sure this got asked before recently, but I just wanted to double-check. I'm assuming it's okay for my javazon to lend her Infinity and CtA to another character for RFL round 2?
Alright, some mios are done, all works pretty okay id say. still didnt farm a ber rune, so still playin the botd.
Didnt play that much the last couple of weeks, also didnt have internet for a week due some rebuilding of my house etc which will take some more months anyway but at least i got other internet for now. well, i could play without as well ofc, but i wanna stream all progress
drops: Bow sk, homu, ist, ist, 4/3 fire rbf, 5/5 light rbf, Tal armor, andyface, Vex, java sk 24l, trap sk, ist, gul, ravenfrost low, 5/5 light rbf, stormshield, trang shield
@sir_cyclops Haha I have been more of a lurker recently. I just hit the 40% mark and was going to make an update post in the next day or so. Haven't had as much time to play as my job involves studying for additional certification exams and my next one is in less than a month. After May 3rd though I will be hitting it hard, hope to get at least 10% a week thereafter and wrap up my journey.
Just enjoy reading what everyone else has going on! Let's me live vicariously through others!
Well I suppose I can make my update now. Pretty standard stuff since the last update, just been going slower as my obligations outside of D2 have increased.
Had a couple of runes drop during this most recent interval. The first was an Ohm which I posted about here originally.
The other was a Sur that just happened this weekend.
If you look closely between the image with the Ohm rune and the image with the Sur rune, you'll notice I really geared up my survivability, going from 2103 to 2105 life! This is due to finding a 20 life charm and replacing one of my previous 19 life charms in the process. Also added 20 AR and 1 max damage in case I ever need to melee.
Similar process as always, not too much new about how I am running. Haven't really gauged my XP/hour recently, just glad to find time to play when I am able to. I will say I have noticed that the wraiths can be particularly annoying. Not because of the damage they deal or anything, just because they drain my mana and I end up needing to go through more pots and therefore stop at Malah. Minor inconvenience, I know, but still bothersome. Maybe the bigger issue is the lack of full rejuvs. Coming from CS runs, more rejuvs dropped than I could ever use. Luckily I stocked up on them prior to starting Nihl since I knew they wouldn't be as common but I enjoyed being able to use them constantly and never worrying about running out.
@PhineasB always love the updates, always great reads and detailed. Your posts are what I try to do (just never have enough material to share!)
@Bewitch great progress! I think you might end up beating me to 99, you are flying through the final level it seems compared to my snails pace!
@sir_cyclops congratulations on finishing up the last of your gear! That's gotta feel good, like that old South Park line about "Well now we can play the game" haha. Although I have never had all the gear for my builds (curse you Death's Fathom and Griffon's Eye!)
And the best of luck to all of you. Ever when I am not able to play as much as I might like, I always enjoy coming and reading what everyone else has been up to!
I'd go the same route, maybe not even with the resist RJoF in CoA (can always use these for Andy other other things after all, and Ral is just as good for a Travincal stopover).
I'd go the same route, maybe not even with the resist RJoF in CoA (can always use these for Andy other other things after all, and Ral is just as good for a Travincal stopover).
Great progress everyone, especially the two 98ers! Stay safe out there!
--
Time for a quick little catch-up before RFL Round 2 takes over everyone's lives!
Back to the Countess grind with Stevesy. Runes are coming in well with him finding:
Lum
Ko
Lum
and then right after hitting level 76; a Pul.
Awesome! Still no Colossus Swords, or decent other eth bases, to speak of but Stevesy is absolutely desperate for a weapon upgrade right now as dual-aldurs just aren't cutting it any more. With that, behold! Stevesy's first proper(ish) weapon:
This significantly improved killing speed, making the runs both smoother and safer. He kept on trucking at the Countess finding a pile of middling runes:
Lum
Lum
Lem
Lum
Ko
Ko
Lum
And finally a proper noteworthy one:
This was followed by another Ko and then another weapon upgrade in Bloodmoon. Very nice! Stevesy had nowhere near the dex needed to equip it, so he took the chance to make himself a Lionheart. With a recently found Tal's belt he reached the dex required and was off to the races again, finding several other Lum/Lem and other boring runes along the way. With the gear changes he now has over 2k life, as well as increased damage, resistances, and general overall survival ability. He'll take a rest here at level 81, and will pick up next time to try and find a 2nd Oath.
Klaus is also alive and well, for those wondering. Almost at his next milestone, and I will get back to him properly once the RFL-mania subsides and I can devote proper attention to having him remain not dead.
@Pb_pal I admire your patience At the level you had, I decided to rush it to LK and I stayed there until I had enough runes for enigma (grief came along the way as well.. ) Great progress tho!
@Pb_pal I admire your patience At the level you had, I decided to rush it to LK and I stayed there until I had enough runes for enigma (grief came along the way as well.. ) Great progress tho!
Thanks! Done the LK thing 3 times now, so I'm determined to make this one a non-LK 99er. I figure once I make it to the Council, at least I'll be able to get some XP while rune hunting.
@Pb_pal if you have tips for undergeared barb at council, I need them! My runs are getting better, but still takes a while to kill them, but the merc is struggling with upped duriels, steel shade and reapers. And fanaticism or conviction seem to be insta-.resets
@Pb_pal if you have tips for undergeared barb at council, I need them! My runs are getting better, but still takes a while to kill them, but the merc is struggling with upped duriels, steel shade and reapers. And fanaticism or conviction seem to be insta-.resets
I have never run Trav with an under-geared barb before, but I'll let you know when I get there! If your main problem is your merc the only thing that will likely help will be getting him some levels, sadly. Mercs struggle there at lower levels without proper gear like Kiras/Steel Shade, etc. Get his resists up, make sure you're using BO on him, and don't expect to go very fast.
I have never run Trav with an under-geared barb before, but I'll let you know when I get there! If your main problem is your merc the only thing that will likely help will be getting him some levels, sadly. Mercs struggle there at lower levels without proper gear like Kiras/Steel Shade, etc. Get his resists up, make sure you're using BO on him, and don't expect to go very fast.
Haha ok sounds great. I do have steelshade on merc, but any of conviction might and fanaticism are instant resets. After I started following that, things have fared much better, though the merc will still die every handful of runs from spectral hit or something if I don't pay him enough attention. Conviction insta kills merc, but is not very dangerous for me (as expected), but I didn't expect fana and might to be such issues. Fana kills the merc and can kill me, but slowly, and might kills both merc and me very quickly. Is it just me or does might always seem worse than fana? I never hear anyone else mention might and fanaticism as ones the barb can't take on, so maybe those are the situations where a higher lvl really helps? Though I ran the basic chance to hit numbers, and going from lvl 80 to 85 only changed my merc with 7000def's chance to be hit from like 44% to 43%, so not sure if I'm doing something wrong there or if there's something specific to certain boss modifiers. Of course the extra life and ~1% higher chance to hit would help some as well.
@Luhkoh I think the main issue on level difference is the frequency of Council members hitting the merc. They hit hard, and at lower levels, they hit him pretty constantly and often into hit recovery. With those two auras, he's toast, while at higher levels, he isn't getting hit much so they are less dangerous. They impact on your barb's chance to hit also makes a difference, as his offense protects the merc. Obviously, the merc's ability to proc decrepify matters, but my experience at lower levels with prior barbs is that he isn't hitting much for that to matter. I think your approach of S&E with those rolls is probably the best approach until you gain levels. You could also try running without the merc to see if that makes a difference.
Edit: There isn't a lot past discussion on this topic (budget barb at lower level), so I figured I'd expand on my last point a little in case someone comes back to these posts in the future. I often search old threads when I have questions, and Luhkoh and I were PM'ing on the topic because he hadn't found much in older posts.
The merc's might aura obviously helps with the barbs power, as does the decrepify, even if it's not proc'ing regularly due to his low chance to hit. So it seems obvious that he will speed up runs. But I think it's worth testing whether the council kills/hour would be higher if he were left napping. His offensive contribution needs to be balanced against time lost to aborted runs, which may not need to be aborted if it's just the barb, and potentially slower completed runs due to the need to babysit the merc. Also, I've found potion management can slow things considerably, and if you need to feed the merc purples regularly, that may also slow things down as you need to restock. Personally, I also am less efficient / able to run for extended stretches when runs are frustrating or frantic. So that should be factored in if it's an issue for the player.
@PhineasB I am still interested in why the marginal differences in chance to hit and chance to be hit (which I calculated, but am likely missing something) would make such a huge difference. Everyone says it does though, so I'm just interested in what would be going on there. The fact that both the barb and the mercs chance to hit goes up is something I hadn't considered though, which is a good point. Just still seems like a small difference even with 5 more lvls.
My thoughts on your last point about the no merc, from my ~50ish runs so far (so subject to change ofc) is that decrepify is pretty much needed. Even at lvl 75 (when he could first equip reapers) my merc hit enough that decrep was triggered well more than half the time. And if you can scrounge up either sheelshade or guardian angel for him, then I think he's definitely worth keeping around. Then the runs where he gets wiped out are the runs I wouldn't be able to survive anyways, with the exception of conviction. In those cases it might be worth trying to continue when the merc dies (with a finger on the esc button), but it's well worth the gold to res him for the next run imo. Also I think decrepify is far more important than the might aura, and while I found reapers before I was forced to test it, I think a lawbringer a5 merc would work almost as well. It has a lot more cold dmg, but at most 20% of the corpses should shatter anyways. And I sure won't say it's not doable, but I kinda feel like it's not worth attempting trav with a barb with budget weapons until you have either GA and 90 res on the merc or steelshade and 75 res, and either reapers or lawbringer.
You think its worth making a budget barb thread, or is the info being here good enough?
A brief update before I'm offline for a bit. But before that, congrats to @buckcrazy and @Bewitch on the solid progress for the last level. Also, nice progress by @Pb_pal and good luck on the non-LK approach. I can totally relate, as Death minimized his LK runs.
I ended up having to add a day to my trip earlier this week, so didn’t get home until late Wednesday. I’m heading out again early tomorrow through Tuesday, so no progress will be made, and then I will try to focus on completing a set in RFL Rd 2 with Death. Pestilence didn’t get all the way to 98 as I’d hoped, still >6M shy. But . . .
* * *
Patriarch Death and Hazade the A2 Might Merc, Lvl 93 (pic)
Death finished up his last few Pit runs, went back to use his last respec, and is ready for RFL Rd 2 when I get back. I made sure to get base strength and dext to equip gear without +stats, with the rest to vita. I ended up going with CoA/GBane on the merc, with a realgar jewel for now. I will likely swap in the Ral once I find it and a Hel.
Sadly, no major item upgrades or runes, but a very nice charm was really the only thing to show for 92-93:
From here on out, I’m hoping to focus on Council until Engima. If he’s extremely lucky, the 20-hour RFL set is all he will need (fingers crossed).
I will likely also do Pit runs with Pestilence as a break to ping 98 before the end of Rd 2. That will then allow getting comfortable with Nihl runs before RFL Rd 3, with those 20 hours hopefully getting him close to 1/5 into the last level. It will also allow Trav runs with Death and Baal runs with Quinta as breaks over that three-week stretch. So plenty of good options with the untwinked 99ers to keep things moving
Good luck to everyone running RFL Rd 2, and those continuing the push for XP with their untwinked 99ers.
After getting 8 hours of RFL done in the first two days of round two I needed a change of scenery and this seemed like exactly the right thing to do
I wasn't sure what character would be best for my first attempt at 99 but I knew that I didn't want to gear up with a sorc again after spending 4 weeks doing just that. A Druid is probably the slowest option and Barb involves WW, so no thank you
Due to the way I want to try and get a twinked 99er Paladin sometime in the future (Hammerdin->Dreamer) that option was out as it revolves way to many Jah's and perfect resist Targes for my untwinked taste.
I also wanted to avoid Nihlathak the first time around because he and his friends seem like a bunch of douchebags So a good Baal runner which leaves Assassin and Amazon.
Since I will pretty much strip off any gear she finds that she doesn't need and give it to the twinked pool the Amazon was out. The thought of finding a Griffon's on an untwinked char before I find one on my twinked characters and not being able to mule it off for maximum profit was horrifying.
That leaves me with a good old Assassin
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Soon to be level 70+ predatory_wasp first saw the light of day last night and made it to level 28 in about 5 hours (I couldn't stop! ) and is currently parked in act 5 where she is going to run Eldritch and later Baal. I will share the progress until this point and then get her to Hell which shouldn't be nearly as interesting as the early levels.
I decided to play through the majority of normal on p3 as it makes for smoother leveling and leads to only a moderate amount of kiting enemies (cursed Yeti packs on p8 are so doable ). I played her with fire traps until I hit the RoF WP (and early on also hit stuff with her Katar) and then respecced to lightning traps, this is also when I turned down the player setting to p1 which I kept until I got the Frigid Highland WP. I saw some people save their early respeccs but I didn't feel like throwing javelins and there's not a lot of variation with a pure Trapsin in terms of skill point distributions anyways. (On this note somebody should do an untwinked 99er pit zerker leveling only in pits, should be doable )
Some more details and a few pictures in spoilers so the post isn't too bloated:
Rakanishu never even saw me coming (overleveled in Mausoleum -> high FB damage):
He couldn't even run away...
Another nice thing was this map roll...
... and after no more than 10 countess runs I had Stealth and Leaf in my hands. On a related note I also was able to equip Stealth at that point.
After that I pretty much flew to Andariel thanks to BoS. On the Way I got another speed boost:
and the next screenshot I have is already of me killing Creeping Feature
It was largely uneventful after that... 4th way AS (MC Escher Layout to boot...) and discovering how well Wake of Fire worked there As a bonus I got a Kurast Sewers map where the entrance to level 2 is in the middle and had to walk around the entire map to find out. (Also suckers ) There was a reward though:
Obviously Mephisto wanted the last word on that:
Now by this point I had already gotten the invisible merc bug and was still on p3...
Not even Diablo took that much time to kill
After that I ran to Eldritch where the grind can now begin
Additional fun fact: As the FAM way of respeccing still makes me very nervous about wasting skill and stat points I have pretty much only invested the strength for equipment so far, so she's been a little bit squishy all throughout. The irony of it all is going to Akara to respecc when you still have 120 Stat points unspent
Right now she has 140 unspent Stat points and 4 unspent skill points with a total of 149 life, luckily she can stay in the back for the most part
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I will update at level 70 (which is when I want to enter Hell) and then make a plan on what farming I want to do with her.
Also I entered myself into the tables basically by hand, having to insert spaces and preview back and forth. Is this the usual way or am I missing something big here?
Due to the way I want to try and get a twinked 99er Paladin sometime in the future (Hammerdin->Dreamer) that option was out as it revolves way to many Jah's and perfect resist Targes for my untwinked taste.
Tell me about it, that's what I was going for with my third entry, actually wanted to go melee only. Not sure if I'll stick with that approach, but I'll get back to this after RFL ends – this thread is too quiet for my taste!
@ffs I've never played a Dreamer, only ever a HS Pala with Crescent Moon. So I'd rather find out if I like him in a setting where making 2 novelty runewords worth a Jah isn't as time consuming.
Also since I don't know wether I will reach level 95 at Travincal it's quite realistic to do that with a Hammerdin at CS in round 3, so why not go a few steps further and attempt a twinked 99er? (I absolutely want and need one character at level 95 or above)
Considering the fact that I found a Jah pre-RFL all I need for it on top of the other runes I want (LoJah -> Phoenix, Ber -> Enigma, Cham -> Steelshade) are two Jahs. Sadly so far I only have 5 Chams so I don't even know wether I will have Enigma for Round 3.
There are some interesting Mat/Pat threads where people have run Baal (maybe for 99?) with a Dreamer and a Dream Bear Sorc. That seems like a relaxed alternative to Nihlathak. I'll have to dig those threads out again, it's been over a year since I read them.
For the Dreamer I would say that Grief probably beats Crescent Moon by quite a bit so I would be going for that as a goal and use Dracul's as gloves to achieve Immortality. (High Lightning Damage, more than decent Physical, insane Leech -> Solid Baal Runner)
(If it hasn't become clear by now: I really want to avoid Nihlathak )
Yeah in terms of twinked play I've had quite some fun with both Bear Sorc and Zeal Pally with dual Dreams. Bear Sorc is considerably stronger, but Dreamer is still strongest melee Paladin I've played. Indeed the phyiscal variant with Grief is stronger than CM. I haven't tried a full Auradin yet, though in the meantime I have made Hand of Justice and Dragons as well, so that's on the long-term agenda.
My plan for Lucid (my untwinked 99er Paladin – currently lvl 13 ) was to hit LK for Enigma and then run Trav as phyiscal Zealot for those Dreams, and after that switch to Baal until 99. But I often throw plans out of the window.
Dream Bear Sorc is also dual element and I reckon that makes her a lot more uncomplicated, because even with full Conviction those LI's could be slow to take down, especially Lister. How strong is he exactly though? Is Salvation even needed? I guess one option would be to try Fanatiscism as a secondary Aura. (Or a mix of some Salvation Synergy and a reasonable level of Fana)
Be sure to write up your experience with the Dragon Paladin! I've read that the Hydra Procs can be annoying but don't know how much it actually disturbs gameplay. He probably won't be as versatile as a Dreamer but his Fire Damage has the potential to make up for that.
I wouldn't make any plans that are set in stone either... you never know what drops you get
Yeah Bear Enchantress deals fire damage also, but main difference is that Sorc's Lightning Mastery and + skills scale much better with Dreams than Pally's synergies. I could reach >70k max damage with her, it's ridiculous.
I used Conviction on my phyiscal Dreamer, you can still hit last Zeal BP easily without Fanaticism. Apart from much higher -ELR, not needing Infinity on Merc means he can use Reaper's. This is what I ended up with, having found Grief was stronger than CM – and for the Grief variant, Reaper's Merc is best fit.
The Auradin would be a dual Dreamer as well, but moreover using Hand of Justice and one Dragon (amor). I did play a dual Dragon/HoJ Bear Sorc recently, she was definitely fun and Hydras are cool and never annoying.
Forumite Character SC/HC Class Level Exp Date E/S S/U Grail Deaths Hours
--------------- --------------- ----- ----- ----- ---- ---------- --- ---- ----- ------ -----
RIP Kaira_II HC Sin 95 2.55 2018-09-06 Yes - 399 - -
T72on1 ShouldBeEasy HC Pala 95 2.52 2019-01-04 Yes lots 320 NA 103
Kitteh Gwynt HC Druid 87 XXXX 2018-11-07 Yes - - - -
Bewitch itsreal HC Sorc 87 1.xx 2018-04-24 No - - - -
MizzouFTW Pure HC Necro 86 1.15 2018-01-10 Yes - - 1 -
Vildecor Celia HC Ama 84 0.99 2018-05-30 Yes 125 97 1 -
coju NintyNine_orRiP HC Sorc 81 0.74 2016-04-07 Yes - - 1 -
RIP Attila HC Barb 78 0.59 2018-09-26 Yes - 73 - -
TwentyMuleTeam Valus HC Barb 76 0.48 2016-10-27 Yes - - 1 -
Pb_pal Stevesy HC Pala 76 0.48 2017-06-19 Yes - - 1 -
weezaard Cypher SC Druid 66 0.00 2018-02-21 Yes - - 20+ -
Tenecabo OldShatterhand HC Druid 49 0.04 2016-06-16 Yes - 0 1 -
Pijus Pyrestarter HC Druid 36 0.00 2018-05-21 Yes - - 1 -
coju fB HC Sorc 29 0.00 2016-04-09 Yes 1 1 1 2
Kitteh Verallus HC Druid 26 0.00 2016-03-25 No - - 1 -
logoutzero Rolex HC Barb 21 0.00 2016-03-26 Yes 0 0 1 1
Finally moved on thru Act 4 this weekend, it was less hard than expected albeit there where plenty of moron deaths today going into Chaos Sanctuary. Oddly only the one from Diablo though just those damn knights killing him.
Completed first bit Act 5 too so i have access to Eldritch and Shenk when i want albeit that will be semi awkward with a orbiballer as both are cold immunes. Quite likely to skip the rescuing of the barbs as i dont need the runes and head on towards rescuing anya for the resists.
@art_vandelay
If you are gonna do Baal runs, you wont be limited to just the 3 Akara respecs. Tokens pretty much provide as many respecs as youd want. =)
On topic...
I pushed an Assassin to Hell Pindle this weekend and am currently sitting at lvl 84. Once the round 2 of RFL is over, ill add her to the list.
@ffs I didn't mean replace Conviction by Fanaticism, but rather use Fana parallel to it in case of annoying (broken) immunes. Together with the Decrep from Reaper's you shouldn't be far off the damage of an actual Zealot.
I'll keep your Dragon Sorc in mind when I try to find something to do with a surplus of runes (not quite there yet )
As an aside: You wrote in your Sept that you want to try out a Poison Dagger Necro. I know you want to use full TO's but as you own a Dragon shield I have to make sure you know: In this thread by onderduiker under 5. and 6. he explains a 'synergy' between Poison Dagger and the Assassin skill Venom that results in huge poison damage over short periods of time. (See the end of 6. ) He calculates it for level 15 Venom (as you get on Treachery and Grief) while Dragon has a lvl 18 Venom Proc.
@Gynli I'm aware of that, however that means doing Andariel, Mephisto and Diablo runs Especially CS always seems a little unpractical: Wraiths soak up and divert the lightning damage meant for the non-LIs while the toughest monsters have high fire and physical resists, making Death Sentry a lot more inefficient.
I really appreciate now how easy it is to farm essences with a Sorc
@ffs I didn't mean replace Conviction by Fanaticism, but rather use Fana parallel to it in case of annoying (broken) immunes. Together with the Decrep from Reaper's you shouldn't be far off the damage of an actual Zealot.
If you meant "unbreakable" immunes, indeed that is when I used Fanaticism on him temporarily. For "broken" immunes – it's not possible to get all three of Conviction, Fanaticism and Reaper's at the same time.
art_vandelay said:
As an aside: You wrote in your Sept that you want to try out a Poison Dagger Necro. I know you want to use full TO's but as you own a Dragon shield I have to make sure you know: In this thread by onderduiker under 5. and 6. he explains a 'synergy' between Poison Dagger and the Assassin skill Venom that results in huge poison damage over short periods of time. (See the end of 6. ) He calculates it for level 15 Venom (as you get on Treachery and Grief) while Dragon has a lvl 18 Venom Proc.
Yeah I've heard about that, definitely interesting. However, I think I'll go another route entirely with Necro, namely Bonehew with synergized CtC Bone Spear. Been planning to do that for a long time, either with Bonehew or Brand (but the latter I don't have on my 99er stashes). Thing is I fear PDagger is weak anyway and I'll just get frustrated and use PN/CE all the time. But remains to be seen...
That 'synergy' is pretty much the only reason I ever thought about Poison Dagger in the first place. Any Single Target Skill that involves waiting is just... nah.
---
On the topic of 99ers: I had to give in and put 50 points into Vit after I got annihilated by some random Champion Type Archer on the way to NM Countess. There were 3 of them in total but she did me in all by herself in the time it took for me to blink
Serious question: What do Assassins keep their socket quest for if they go Enigma/HotO/Spirit? All of those bases aren't insanely hard to cube by hand or just find with the right amount of sockets. Maybe Shako...
All this talk about Trappers ... quite the coincidence. I feel the urge to make another untwinked 99er from time to time. Trapper currently is the top candidate. Although I might end up just leveling one up twinked.
On the sockets question, I agree with Nano. The third socket quest might actually go to a third helm in case the sin finds a nice 2/20 circlet type helm. I can't really think of any other really practical option if she's HoTO/spirit set up.
I promised an update when I hit level 70 with my Assassin, but I kinda overstayed my welcome at NM Pindle
From level 28 on I leveled to about level 38-39 at Eldritch and by killing monsters on the way to Baal. After killing Baal I only wanted to get my 'Den of Evil' skill point in NM, but she performed so well that I just kept running through to the Black Marsh. I got very lucky at NM countess, finding a 4os Bill and a 4os CS on the way to her as well as a Lum from a Ghost. So after quite a few runs I was in my mid forties and had Spirit, Insight, Splendor, Lore, Edge and the runes for Rhyme.
After that I quested my way to NM Pindle and learned how to play her on the way. The second and third act were kinda unmemorable except for a Ribracker drop in Maggot Lair lvl 2 which was still an overall grailer for me. I really started to appreciate Mind Blast, never really using Cloak of Shadows (except by accident) and had the most bizzare incident with it when taking down a highly lightning resistant Hephasto:
I basically pinned him against the brazier with Mind Blast while setting traps during his hit recovery. Sparks were flying
After that it was smooth sailing. Broke through to Eldritch at level 60 and then leveled maybe 2 or 3 times there. After that it was Pindle to level 74,4 and then Ancients. I finally reached level 75 in WSK 1 after Ancients put me at about 74,99 .
Baal Waves melted like butter and Baal himself went down reasonably fast. Before I exited I went back to Act 2 to complete Radament and got a nice Blindspot Drop from him:
I ran around and tried to see the 'Book of Skill' but only after I picked a few piles of gold and drank a few potions did it become visible:
Crazy how the game can be sometimes!
Anyway I only did Hell Den of Evil after that before reporting in
---
Early on while running NM countess I also had my first death when some insane Champion Archer took me out in three shots. That prompted me to invest 50 more points in Vit then and while leveling up further I did the same thing three more times. I guess I could already invest some more points towards a Spirit, but who knows how long that will take.
I maxed LS and DS and put 10 points in CB Sentry and Shock Web each (why? who knows ) as well as 15 into FB. Nothing went into MA Skills and exactly 5 points into Shadow Disciplines to get BoS and Mind Blast.
I still have 3 points left. I could get another shot on DS, skill the Shadow Master, reach a higher BoS level or put more towards Synergies. In an ideal world I don't want to rely on Shadow Master at all since she is mostly annoying and tanks quite poorly (at least when you don't put more than 1 point in her...) and get full Synergies on LS. I will have to look into the IAS calc to get the ideal BoS level for CS and Flail (already found a 4os one!) and think about how many +Skill Items I will reasonably get before I make any decisions on that front.
The plan now is to reach level 90 (most likely on Hell Pindle) with minimal WP usage and check back in I guess the vague Idea after that is to do LK and Pindle in tandem, but it's not 100% clear yet.
I was dubious of fire blast, but as a person who has played a trapper almost exclusively for the last 3 months, maxing fire blast was an awesome decision. Also, I was running (literally) LK with 24-25sec runs so max out that run walk and grind that enigma @art_vandelay
IpBanPrevales returns from resting after a full month ! All those RFL rounds makes me want to breathe a bit... hopefully she's here !
Since yesterday, dropped her 4th Sur at LK and gain a lvl, now 79 80.8 after last session, most AT and some while pushing A4 - got the two wps and Izual skillpoints, swapped the Hellforge for now - baby woken up, I ran to get the wp, but I was holding the meph stone.
Tonight i'll go leveling a bit toward 81 at AT I guess, then in the coming days i'll be pushing to CS to optimize xp gain - and get this hellforge. Beside i'll complete a RFL set quickly, 15hrs done right now.
Huge night at AT, couldn't get out of there... make a level and a half more or less, let's check that drops !
An Infinity base, or not good enough... for now i don't know how i could do without Insight, but at some point i'll have to do it
Small charms
Nagel 29 - an upgrade
Now the HOLY SHHH... drops... two trap weaps
(dropped while levelling yesterday night, a pack of screens took before going back to AT)
And the top grailer of the... i guess i didn't have a better drop since i restarted !
Good - good night !
-------
End of afternoon made her push to almost 82. Will push to that point before going back to some Travi runs with barb, could complete Fortitude now, time to test it
Edit: now 82. Last drop was that Nosfe, only 5LL. Ebug Fortitude helps so much ! Not sure about manapotting using an Infinity, i have to work on mana regen (manald ?), mpk will not be enough i guess.
How is this on the second page? Get your **** together people.
Once RFL is over, I plan to get back to this and quest the Paladin through. Ironically, after doing it twice – now it seems like a daunting project and I'm a bit scared.
Yeah, that's the issue for me. RFL. Full focus on that, no time for my 99er sorc. Hopefully that changes after the RFL, but I also want to start building my Pit Zerker...
Champion Pestilence and Alhizeer the Might Desert Merc (and Insight IG), Lvl 98 (pic)
After being out of town last weekend through Tuesday, I started rolling Trav maps and doing some testing with Death so he could start his RFL Rd 2 set. I took a couple short breaks for Pit runs with Pestilence, who had been ~6M shy before I left.
Those breaks left him >3M short of the level, allowing me to finish up this morning. The drops over the last tenth were quite nice indeed! Early on he picked up Lo #4 and Ist #10, which I am pretty sure was his first HR from the Pit chest. He then picked up Gargoyle’s as a nice TC87 unique, followed by Pul #15, and a nice charm (Steel GC of Vita).
We closed out with quite a run of TC87 uniques, beginning with Executioner’s Justice right at 3.20B, and then earlier today:
Nope I really thought this would be the one, figuring two unique SAs just from this level had to make it happen. Sadly, it wasn't to be . . .
And on his second-to-last Pit run, a good-bye present was provided, his second for 97-98:
I would have preferred Mang’s for my overall grail, but it was cool to see, and from a regular monster no less.
* * *
Due to sticking with the Novamancer build, the Pit ended up being basically his best XP option for 97-98. It was slow, likely averaging 3M/hr (or more likely a little less due to more relaxed running style when not paying attention to XP/hr).
But it allowed me to load up on MF and focus on drops. At 303% MF for most of the level, he picked up quite a few TC87 uniques, 14 to be exact, and to tick off a grailer (Earthshifter), leaving me at grail -2. The two Sacred Armors were frustrating, combined with one he found earlier, for three Templar’s and my eighth overall non-Pindle one without Tyrael’s
He also picked up Ko+ runes with the following tally for the level:
Code:
Ko 15
Fal 12
Lem 12
Pul 7
Um 2
Mal 0
Ist 3
Gul 0
Vex 1
Ohm 0
Lo 2
Sur 2
Ber 0
Jah 1
So he can cube 4 Mals from Um- and can make a second Enigma, which he may actually do for the corpse recovery kit for 98-99.
In all, quite productive and an interesting way to approach that level. As I estimated early in the level, 97-98 likely ended up taking as long as 98-99 will take due to having Ancient’s quest XP available. Contingent on how bad the S&E lag ends up being for his Nihl runs, I’m hopeful that he will get close to 3M/hr.
Now it’s time to move on from the Pit. His career there began after making Enigma at level 82 and provided pretty much all his XP up to 98, with breaks for LK and a few Council/CS runs mixed in. He has one more respec left, which he will use when Death finishes his RFL set. Death's gotten about 25 minutes into his set after finally rolling a solid map for non-Enigma runner. Then Pestilence will be my RFL Rd 3 entry, with those 20 hours hopefully getting him solidly into level 98.
For posterity, here are gear and stats (with last stats and skill point unallocated). He didn't need corpse recovery kit for a while (I think since level 94), so I left it out.
Arachnid Mesh
Spiderweb Sash
Defense: 132
Durability: 12 of 12
Required Level: 80
Required Strength: 50
Fingerprint: 0x39d48942
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to All Skills
+20% Faster Cast Rate
Slows Target by 10%
+110% Enhanced Defense
Increase Maximum Mana 5%
Level 3 Venom (11/11 Charges)
Trang-Oul's Claws
Heavy Bracers
Defense: 69
Durability: 16 of 16
Required Level: 45
Required Strength: 58
Fingerprint: 0x965b98e3
Item Level: 59
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to Curses (Necromancer only)
+20% Faster Cast Rate
+25% to Poison Skill Damage
+30 Defense
Cold Resist +30%
Pestilence's Enigma
Breast Plate
JahIthBer
Defense: 828
Durability: 48 of 50
Required Level: 65
Required Strength: 30
Fingerprint: 0x179c5fd8
Item Level: 50
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to All Skills
+45% Faster Run/Walk
+1 to Teleport
+762 Defense
+73 to Strength (Based on Character Level)
Increase Maximum Life 5%
Damage Reduced by 8%
+14 Life after each Kill
15% Damage Taken Goes To Mana
98% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items (Based on Character Level)
3 Sockets (3 used)
Socketed: Jah Rune
Socketed: Ith Rune
Socketed: Ber Rune
Heart of the Oak
Flail
KoVexPulThul
One Hand Damage: 1 - 24
Durability: 30 of 30
Required Level: 55
Required Strength: 41
Required Dexterity: 35
Fingerprint: 0x4aa275aa
Item Level: 60
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+3 to All Skills
+40% Faster Cast Rate
+75% Damage to Demons
+100 to Attack Rating against Demons
+150% Damage to Undead
Adds 3 - 14 Cold Damage Over 3 Secs (75 Frames)
7% Mana stolen per hit
+10 to Dexterity
Replenish Life +20
Increase Maximum Mana 15%
All Resistances +30
Level 4 Oak Sage (25/25 Charges)
Level 14 Raven (60/60 Charges)
4 Sockets (4 used)
Socketed: Ko Rune
Socketed: Vex Rune
Socketed: Pul Rune
Socketed: Thul Rune
Nagelring
Ring
Required Level: 7
Fingerprint: 0x91d70617
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+50 to Attack Rating
Magic Damage Reduced by 3
Attacker Takes Damage of 3
25% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
War Traveler
Battle Boots
Defense: 120
Durability: 48 of 48
Required Level: 42
Required Strength: 95
Fingerprint: 0x40568c24
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+25% Faster Run/Walk
Adds 15 - 25 Damage
+151% Enhanced Defense
+10 to Strength
+10 to Vitality
40% Slower Stamina Drain
Attacker Takes Damage of 7
41% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+30 Maximum Durability
Griffon's Eye
Diadem
Defense: 234
Durability: 20 of 20
Required Level: 76
Fingerprint: 0xab4bab6d
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to All Skills
+25% Faster Cast Rate
-18% to Enemy Lightning Resistance
+14% to Lightning Skill Damage
+177 Defense
24% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Perfect Topaz
Perfect Topaz
Required Level: 18
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: Adds 1 - 40 Lightning Damage
Armor: 24% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Shields: Lightning Resist +40%
Entropy Eye
Amulet
Required Level: 89
Fingerprint: 0xc0addc2d
Item Level: 90
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to Necromancer Skill Levels
+20% Faster Cast Rate
+18 to Strength
+11 to Mana
Regenerate Mana 6%
6% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Beast Finger
Ring
Required Level: 60
Fingerprint: 0xe713b9b7
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+10% Faster Cast Rate
+15 to Attack Rating
+32 to Life
+14 Maximum Stamina
Lightning Resist +28%
Call to Arms
Crystal Sword
AmnRalMalIstOhm
One Hand Damage: 18 - 54
Durability: 20 of 20
Required Level: 57
Required Strength: 43
Fingerprint: 0xe92ff96b
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to All Skills
+40% Increased Attack Speed
265% Enhanced Damage
Adds 5 - 30 Fire Damage
7% Life stolen per hit
Prevent Monster Heal
+6 to Battle Command
+6 to Battle Orders
+3 to Battle Cry
Replenish Life +12
30% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
5 Sockets (5 used)
Socketed: Amn Rune
Socketed: Ral Rune
Socketed: Mal Rune
Socketed: Ist Rune
Socketed: Ohm Rune
Spirit
Monarch
TalThulOrtAmn
Defense: 143
Chance to Block: 0
Durability: 86 of 86
Required Level: 54
Required Strength: 156
Fingerprint: 0x327ce544
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to All Skills
+35% Faster Cast Rate
+55% Faster Hit Recovery
+250 Defense vs. Missile
+22 to Vitality
+100 to Mana
Cold Resist +35%
Lightning Resist +35%
Poison Resist +35%
+4 Magic Absorb
Attacker Takes Damage of 14
4 Sockets (4 used)
Socketed: Tal Rune
Socketed: Thul Rune
Socketed: Ort Rune
Socketed: Amn Rune
Pestilence's Death's Web
Unearthed Wand
One Hand Damage: 22 - 28
Durability: 18 of 18
Required Level: 66
Required Strength: 25
Fingerprint: 0xf4413a6c
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to All Skills
+2 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)
-43% to Enemy Poison Resistance
+9 to Mana after each Kill
+9 Life after each Kill
30% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Ist Rune
Ist Rune
Required Level: 51
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: 30% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Armor: 25% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Shields: 25% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Spirit
Monarch
TalThulOrtAmn
Defense: 140
Chance to Block: 0
Durability: 85 of 86
Required Level: 54
Required Strength: 156
Fingerprint: 0x51fe094b
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to All Skills
+35% Faster Cast Rate
+55% Faster Hit Recovery
+250 Defense vs. Missile
+22 to Vitality
+111 to Mana
Cold Resist +35%
Lightning Resist +35%
Poison Resist +35%
+3 Magic Absorb
Attacker Takes Damage of 14
4 Sockets (4 used)
Socketed: Tal Rune
Socketed: Thul Rune
Socketed: Ort Rune
Socketed: Amn Rune
Code:
Horadric Cube
Fingerprint: 0xf2ae3e20
Item Level: 13
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Sapphire Small Charm of Good Luck
Small Charm
Required Level: 33
Fingerprint: 0xc7ae96f
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Cold Resist +11%
6% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Snake's Small Charm of Vita
Small Charm
Required Level: 39
Fingerprint: 0xca32ecbc
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+19 to Life
+10 to Mana
Snake's Small Charm of Vita
Small Charm
Required Level: 39
Fingerprint: 0xf685c245
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+20 to Life
+11 to Mana
Sapphire Small Charm of Good Luck
Small Charm
Required Level: 33
Fingerprint: 0x9c29e7fb
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Cold Resist +10%
6% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Russet Small Charm of Good Luck
Small Charm
Required Level: 33
Fingerprint: 0x8a595e46
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Fire Resist +7%
7% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Serpent's Small Charm of Vita
Small Charm
Required Level: 40
Fingerprint: 0x715aede7
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+19 to Life
+16 to Mana
Russet Small Charm of Good Luck
Small Charm
Required Level: 33
Fingerprint: 0x1296821c
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Fire Resist +6%
7% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Stalwart Small Charm of Good Luck
Small Charm
Required Level: 40
Fingerprint: 0xf508173c
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+30 Defense
7% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Snake's Small Charm of Good Luck
Small Charm
Required Level: 33
Fingerprint: 0x37dfb353
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+9 to Mana
7% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Coral Small Charm of Vita
Small Charm
Required Level: 39
Fingerprint: 0x42980964
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+19 to Life
Lightning Resist +8%
Ruby Small Charm of Balance
Small Charm
Required Level: 32
Fingerprint: 0xad738c60
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+5% Faster Hit Recovery
Fire Resist +11%
Fungal Grand Charm of Dexterity
Grand Charm
Required Level: 42
Fingerprint: 0xa9895ca6
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)
+4 to Dexterity
Fungal Grand Charm of Vita
Grand Charm
Required Level: 69
Fingerprint: 0x85ff09c0
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)
+40 to Life
Fungal Grand Charm
Grand Charm
Required Level: 42
Fingerprint: 0x7ddfd7d9
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)
Fungal Grand Charm of Vita
Grand Charm
Required Level: 69
Fingerprint: 0x3b4c50e2
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)
+39 to Life
Fungal Grand Charm
Grand Charm
Required Level: 42
Fingerprint: 0x4edac3c2
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)
Fungal Grand Charm of Storms
Grand Charm
Required Level: 42
Fingerprint: 0xe0179fe1
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)
Adds 1 - 29 Lightning Damage
Gheed's Fortune
Grand Charm
Required Level: 62
Fingerprint: 0x6172d98e
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
142% Extra Gold from Monsters
Reduces all Vendor Prices 11%
40% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Key + 1x3 Open
Code:
Name: Alhizeer
Race: Desert Mercenary
Type: Off-Nightmare
Experience: 110679690
Level: 97
Dead?: false
Naked/Gear
Strength: 207/236
Dexterity: 168/168
HP: 2247/2357
Defense: 1643/5114
AR: 2057/2057
Fire: 156/116/56
Cold: 186/146/86
Lightning: 186/146/86
Poison: 256/216/156
Fortitude
Dusk Shroud
ElSolDolLo
Defense: 3132
Durability: 11 of 11
Required Level: 59
Required Strength: 67
Fingerprint: 0x3c7aabc5
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
20% Chance to cast level 15 Chilling Armor when struck
+25% Faster Cast Rate
300% Enhanced Damage
+200% Enhanced Defense
+15 Defense
+110 to Life (Based on Character Level)
Replenish Life +7
+5% to Maximum Lightning Resist
All Resistances +25
Damage Reduced by 7
12% Damage Taken Goes To Mana
+1 to Light Radius
Ethereal
4 Sockets (4 used)
Socketed: El Rune
Socketed: Sol Rune
Socketed: Dol Rune
Socketed: Lo Rune
Andariel's Visage
Demonhead
Defense: 339
Durability: 10 of 20
Required Level: 83
Required Strength: 102
Fingerprint: 0x6cca8d34
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
15% Chance to cast level 15 Poison Nova when struck
+2 to All Skills
+20% Increased Attack Speed
10% Life stolen per hit
+119% Enhanced Defense
+29 to Strength
+10% to Maximum Poison Resist
Fire Resist -30%
Poison Resist +70%
Level 3 Venom (14/20 Charges)
Infinity
Giant Thresher
BerMalBerIst
Two Hand Damage: 232 - 661
Durability: 28 of 28
Required Level: 66
Required Strength: 178
Required Dexterity: 130
Fingerprint: 0xb0613822
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
50% Chance to cast level 20 Chain Lightning when you Kill an Enemy
Level 12 Conviction Aura When Equipped
+35% Faster Run/Walk
287% Enhanced Damage
-55% to Enemy Lightning Resistance
40% Chance of Crushing Blow
Prevent Monster Heal
+49 to Vitality (Based on Character Level)
30% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Level 21 Cyclone Armor (30/30 Charges)
Ethereal
4 Sockets (4 used)
Socketed: Ber Rune
Socketed: Mal Rune
Socketed: Ber Rune
Socketed: Ist Rune
Oops... didn't know ! Well... Meph seems to be an overall best target for now, mara's + better *almost everything* - need better gloves, belt, ring, amulet, circlet but dropped a shako doing AT so it's fine. A godly pair of res boots would be welcomed too, using 60 pres treks for now.
The shako drop, en route to AT:
Edit: i'll push to lvl 85 at Andy, trying to get one of the skiller ring before going to do Meph. Slightly more than half the level done, no useful pick beside a Pul on the run out of a random mob.
After finishing her lvl 85 at Andy's, not finding a BKWB or SoJ, IpBanPrevales switched to Meph and did a full lvl there, and finally found an upgrade: a 28@ Mara! So now 86, still poor resistances (20/50/53/75 thx to treks) as she was wearing some res amulet already, but an upgrade on +all skills and some stats - always nice to have.
I found also a screen of when she was questing towards A4, found some nice mage plate there, no sox for now.
Edit: Then went back to AT, where she dropped a Pul and a Tal rasha's mask - merc upgrade, was using undead crown lvl 87 now !
Sometimes I just hate this game. A week ago I made it all the way to act 3 and then stopped because I already had a bad feeling. I just tried to get past the jungle three times, each time rerolling the map. No GM skip and always gloams...
Fireblast and Death Sentry are strangely ineffective since the enemy density is so low and it's hard to target enemies that are constantly repositioning (Flayers and those birds...)
Now I will have to go back to get LR gear just so I can access LK. The funny thing is that there is nothing even remotely threatening after the GM until the Cantor Blizzards and after that nothing until the Plains of Despair.
Alright done with RFL round 2. Time for some grinding.
The goal: Infinity + respec to lightning
The plan: LK of course
The map:
Current progress: 1 sur
Items needed: 1.5 ber, 1 ohm (for cta), any 4os eth elite polearm, 4os monarch (still need spirit shield), crescent moon
Avg runs for 1.5 ber: 1,640
Gonna be a challenge, but with a little luck should be possible. Planning on burning this map up till I have the runes and then racking for the infi and spirit bases. The backup plan for rfl round 3 is to sacrifice a ber to my other characters so I can make enigma for them (already have a jah on those chars), but lets hope it doesn't come to that
Lightning sorc is pretty good for chaos right? I feel like I only see her mentioned for baal these days.
Solid, yes. Cold sorc is better and cheaper and safer at the same time though (Insight plus maybe max block with Stormshield). Unless your plan is to go for the Diablo as well and not just focus the ghosts.
@Gripphon ok great thanks. Solid is all I need to hear. Since I used blizzard for round 1, I wanted to not use it again for the other rounds, though I did figure she was a good bit better for RFL round 3. I haven't decided how I'm going to run for round 3 in particular, if i do make infinity in time. Hopefully I'll be able to test out some different run styles. I plan to play some pits with her as well, which I know she's at least decent for.
For general 99ing considerations, is baal expected to be a whole lot faster than chaos for a light sorc for exp from lvls 95-98 or so? My general thought was to do pits/chaos till 95 or 96 and then chaos till 98 then nilly. But if its more efficient to not save the ancients, I'll start baal runs at 96 or 97 (assuming I don't change plans again and again ).
For general 99ing considerations, is baal expected to be a whole lot faster than chaos for a light sorc for exp from lvls 95-98 or so? My general thought was to do pits/chaos till 95 or 96 and then chaos till 98 then nilly. But if its more efficient to not save the ancients, I'll start baal runs at 96 or 97 (assuming I don't change plans again and again ).
If you're sure you want to go Lightning Sorc, she is much better off running Baal than CS (even more so for Pit). I hate Baal running, so I tested CS again and again, with various setups and CS strategies (2 seal runs, 3 seal runs, full P8 clears, P1/P7 runs, everything). Result was always the same, Baal – or rather Lister initially – is just better for her. You can check the 99er write-up of my Sorc which includes links to several posts re XP gain number crunching.
With my Sorc I did respec to Lighnting, but the only reason I didn't stick to Blizzard until 98 was because I found an almost perfect Griffon's Eye early into her journey, plus a 5/5 facet to go with it. Would have been a shame to find something like that on an untwinked Sorc and not use it. In terms of efficiency, Blizzard Sorc @CS is considerably faster until 98. (But then Lightning Sorc @Nihl is fastest build for 98-99. )
@ffs Ah that's right, I should have thought to look at your writeup. I didn't expect pit to compete in exp per hour, more just thinking it doesn't matter too much what I do till 96ish, so might do pits for some mf and variety (but we'll see!). But I suppose if there's no reason for me to save ancients till 98 anyways, it means essence respecs are available.
But considering this, I'll think about whether the lightning sorc I want to play is better suited for a different character than my ut99er. Thanks for the advice!
@Luhkoh I really enjoyed running CS as blizzard myself. I did the 2 seal "Griph" runs. Didn't require Infinity farmed and get so many full rejuvs I don't even think you'd need Insight if you wanted Reapers or something as I did. Great EXP, like really solid, plus I found enough runes prior to 98 that I could have built an Infinity if I had wanted. Perhaps its worth running LK until you can make a CtA, but worth considering the runes you'd get in CS along the way before you'd really "need" an Infinity.
@buckcrazy thanks for the input! All this is really making me lean toward staying blizzard, and chaos's rune drops are another great point. Also that's fun on the full rejuvs, always did want to try a lawbringer merc in chaos... I don't really know why it didn't occur to me before in quite the same way, but I wanted to make a lightning sorc so I planned to do that with arkana (the ut99er), but I have a twinked blizz sorc sitting there too. Why not reverse their roles? I'd have the same two builds to play, along with a better 99er.
@Luhkoh +1 to Blizz Sorc in CS for the untwinked Sorc. Much easier to gear up than the Lightning Sorc, all around fun and strong character in that area. And it indeed has much more potential for drops than Baal (or Baal wave) runs.
@Luhkoh +1 to Blizz Sorc in CS for the untwinked Sorc. Much easier to gear up than the Lightning Sorc, all around fun and strong character in that area. And it indeed has much more potential for drops than Baal (or Baal wave) runs.
:0 A post where I will actually include the table.
Terrahork has completed his set in the second round of the RFL, and only required a handful of Baal runs to hit 95:
Baal offered very little in the way of exciting drops for this level- a Mal, Arach's, and a 15% DR Verdungo's.
I've changed my setup slightly- the Council were kind enough to cough up a Highlord's Wrath which allowed me to swap out my very long-standing Angelic combo for the new amulet, and an AR/8% LL/dual res rare ring. I also used this new source of LL to switch out my Nosferatu's Coil for the 15% DR Verdungo's.
The new setup allows me to do the final wave on p8 without having to do dreadful stuff like moving or using potions too often.
I don't expect to post another experience-based update on Terrahork for a while. Baal runs are proper grim, and I don't want to burn myself out. My immediate plans are to hit up LK for a little bit before Round 3 of RFL to let me either use Gladys (my twinked Amazon) or a new twinked character for that round.
In more relevant news, I've decided to start another untwinked character after the RFL.
He will be the incredibly named JayZeal, a no-LK Paladin. I plan on playing Hammerdin rather than Zeal but I felt the name was too good a pun to pass up. I'll add him to the table once I actually get started with him.
I'm glad to say I found back my diablo 2 save folder from my old computer hard drive, so I can continue this long term challenge with Prairie where I left her, at lvl 91.
So I had to refresh my memory about her. I remebered I planned to make her a light / cold sorceress, but that's all.
I played a couple of hours with her, the time to die once, and remember how average she was, and how I don't feel comfortable with those lightning spells.
Her equipement can be really improved : I never found a 4 socket monarch with her, I badly need shako and arachnid...
On the other side, she wears a SoJ, magefist and vipermagi, and she has nice gears : one occulus, and this eschuta :
I also tried to grab some runes from LK, about 2hours run, maybe.
I find this
but the more interesting drop was from a weapon rack
Now, she had a nice spirit, at least !
For the next hours, I'd like to find an arachnid, shako (or griffon ), a nice amulet (I wear an average +1 sorc, fc + resists), and another nice ring, so I may focus on Meph runs.
I also think a lot about respec for the first time. I should focus on cold skill (+ fire for imune, I guess) instead of light.
Don't know if this nice eschuta worth try light+fire, I fear it won't be enough to make a real difference.
What do you think ? Should I evolve to a classic blizzard ?
First of all, sorry for my bad English , it s not my first language.
I m new here, and want to be a part no the Competiton to LvL 99.
I started an Untwinked Necro, Named Summon, 31.3.19 in Patch 1.14D, atm LvL 80, after a not special playthrougth (may I will talk later more about it) I ended up doing LK runs for Eni now.
My LK Rune progress so after ~300 counted runs ( farmed some days without run counter):
1 Ber
3 Sur
1 Lo
1 Mal
1 Um
3 Pul
2 Lem
also found this beauty:
so i m just 1 Sur away before the real fun begins
@Bewitch give me a Highly recommendation to join the Forum and take part of the untwinked 99 progress thread.
Greetings on this way!
Alright done with RFL round 2. Time for some grinding.
The goal: Infinity + respec to lightning
The plan: LK of course
The map:
Current progress: 1 sur
Items needed: 1.5 ber, 1 ohm (for cta), any 4os eth elite polearm, 4os monarch (still need spirit shield), crescent moon
Avg runs for 1.5 ber: 1,640
Gonna be a challenge, but with a little luck should be possible. Planning on burning this map up till I have the runes and then racking for the infi and spirit bases. The backup plan for rfl round 3 is to sacrifice a ber to my other characters so I can make enigma for them (already have a jah on those chars), but lets hope it doesn't come to that
Lightning sorc is pretty good for chaos right? I feel like I only see her mentioned for baal these days.
After some input from you all (thanks!), my goals here changed, as I will just stay as blizzard till 98 and make a light sorc on a non-99er. Took some of the pressure off for this grind, as I was now only looking for cta and hoto.
The Results
Days: 7
Runs: 1800
Total time: 14:45
Avg runtime: 29.5 sec
Total runes: 590
Grand charms: 231 (7 skillers)
Small charms: 218
Jewels: 220
Flawless gems: 800
The Runes
(I have a bad habit of scooping up a rune as soon as it's dropped, then realizing I wanted a drop pic and re dropping the rune to take one )
Skillers
burning
burning of vita (25)
fletchers of sustenance (33)
lion branded of dexterity (3)
sounding of dexterity (5)
sparking of greed
spiritual of maiming
Was hoping for a few more, but these are at least mostly useful
Best small charm: 19life/5@ This will go well with arkanas 20life/3@ sc.
There were 4 other 19 lifers, zero 20 lifers, and one 7mf.
No gg jewels, at least as far I can judge. Zero jewels of fervor, which seems kinda strange.
The plan now
With these finds, and a couple of more runes I had on her before this, I have exactly enough (meaning no leftovers even) pul+ runes to make cta, cube a vex for hoto (don't have a base yet), and give an ist to my other characters. My other characters need exactly an ist to cube to a non ut99er cta. Feels good. I'll post the rw's when I roll them, hopefully this afternoon
Arkana also had another sur before starting this stint, so shes up to 3 total. However 1 sur is going to my non-ut99ers to make my very first enigma! The Lo will go to my barb for very first grief! And the other 2xSur will stay on Arkana for now, though I expect that whenever my other characters have enough runes for another ber, they'll be taken from arkana for first infinity. I'll hope arkana herself drops the runes for infinity on her way to lvl 98. But if not, it's not like I won't be motivated enough for more LK with a lvl 98'er sitting there!
Next I think I'll level Arkana a while in the tunnels, and when she gets to lvl 94 or 95, make the switch to chaos. Just for some mf and area variety.
Which skillers should i keep on her for the eventually nilly running? (Assuming I eventually get that far) The fire or the lightning?
Both Fire and Lightning Sorc work great for Nihl. I'd keep skillers for both and let drops tell you if you go Lightning or Fire for the last level. Griffon's means Light Sorc, Eschuta's, fire facets and runes for Phoenix mean Fire Sorc. Although I ran him without Phoenix just fine .
I went on doin my normal nihla runs and somewhen a Jah rune drops, after that i just though like damn, why its not ber. somehow it motivated me to go back to lk and farm that damn ber rune to make a beast. and so i did, i didnt count runs, but it feelt like it took pretty long to get the 2 surs.
So, today i found the 2nd one and respecct to grief/beast and it works pretty well, although i sometimes miss the GPA range^^
Also check highlight of 2nd sur, nearly didnt see it^^
Drops: RBF -3 +5 light, SK bow 32 life, GC 5 max 23 ar 45 life, Jah rune, Sc 5 fhr 3 allres, homunculus,
then from LK: Ist, Um, Gul, Um, Mal, Cold sk, Mal, Cold sk, Um, Vex, Gul, Um, +5 java 20 ias javs, Sur, Vex, Um, Cold sk, Fire sk, Sur, Shako (shako from nihla^^)
IpBanPrevales leveling in AT /p5, passed lvl 91 mark tonight, rewarded by a frw trap skiller!
Switched to Pindleskin for xp efficiency at least until lvl 92, then choice will be between questing again towards ancients/Baal and keep leveling here or in a 85 area.
Any tips on best places for a LS trapsin ?
Edit: current xp status after afternoon session. Shall be 92 tonight, in about two hours of running, slightly more time irl
After some input from you all (thanks!), my goals here changed, as I will just stay as blizzard till 98 and make a light sorc on a non-99er. Took some of the pressure off for this grind, as I was now only looking for cta and hoto.
The Results
Days: 7
Runs: 1800
Total time: 14:45
Avg runtime: 29.5 sec
Total runes: 590
Grand charms: 231 (7 skillers)
Small charms: 218
Jewels: 220
Flawless gems: 800
The Runes
(I have a bad habit of scooping up a rune as soon as it's dropped, then realizing I wanted a drop pic and re dropping the rune to take one )
Skillers
burning
burning of vita (25)
fletchers of sustenance (33)
lion branded of dexterity (3)
sounding of dexterity (5)
sparking of greed
spiritual of maiming
Was hoping for a few more, but these are at least mostly useful
Best small charm: 19life/5@ This will go well with arkanas 20life/3@ sc.
There were 4 other 19 lifers, zero 20 lifers, and one 7mf.
No gg jewels, at least as far I can judge. Zero jewels of fervor, which seems kinda strange.
The plan now
With these finds, and a couple of more runes I had on her before this, I have exactly enough (meaning no leftovers even) pul+ runes to make cta, cube a vex for hoto (don't have a base yet), and give an ist to my other characters. My other characters need exactly an ist to cube to a non ut99er cta. Feels good. I'll post the rw's when I roll them, hopefully this afternoon
Arkana also had another sur before starting this stint, so shes up to 3 total. However 1 sur is going to my non-ut99ers to make my very first enigma! The Lo will go to my barb for very first grief! And the other 2xSur will stay on Arkana for now, though I expect that whenever my other characters have enough runes for another ber, they'll be taken from arkana for first infinity. I'll hope arkana herself drops the runes for infinity on her way to lvl 98. But if not, it's not like I won't be motivated enough for more LK with a lvl 98'er sitting there!
Next I think I'll level Arkana a while in the tunnels, and when she gets to lvl 94 or 95, make the switch to chaos. Just for some mf and area variety.
Which skillers should i keep on her for the eventually nilly running? (Assuming I eventually get that far) The fire or the lightning?
@Luhkoh Respectable CtA and very nice HotO. You farmed those up quick it seems!
As for skillers, I would just keep all three trees. Are you short on space at all? Otherwise you could end up doing either fire or lightning for the final level depending on what gear drops along the way.
You could always save 2x Sur on your untwinked to potentially make a CoH. I know there are sometimes more ideal armors, but I find it a great all around sorc armor that I used for the extent of my leveling after my first Ber dropped. Between HotO and CoH (and those awesome all res/life small charms you've found) you cover the majority of your resists. However, I know Vipermagi is quite competitive and you may rather save your Surs for something that adds more value or even save them for the future Infinity you'll want to make on her. Just my 2 cents.
@buckcrazy Thanks! Last time i did a bunch of LK runs (before joining the forum) I was doing like 30 a day trying to make it painless, but then I felt like it just dragged on forever. So this time I went the opposite route and just went at it hard, and I think I liked this way a lot more.
Wise advice and I really appreciate it. I always feel conflicted though, becaise I have other characters who aren't untwinked that I like a lot, and I'm tempted to give them a lot of gear from this sorc. So I'm tempted to give away the 2x sur for earlier infinity on other characters, and the fire skillers to make a different fire sorc. Which of course doesn't do the 99er enough justice. I feel like for a while the ut99ers challenge was mostly experienced players, so they weren't so poor on other characters that this was an issue. But now that a lot of us freshly started players are joining the challenge, stuff like this is coming up more often haha. For now though, she has the surs and the skillers safe in her stash
Lucid is moving! He ran off with Zeal/Might, killed Andariel and got the cube in A2. But I honestly didn't see myself using Zeal all the time. So I ditched the original "melee only" idea and switched to BH/Concentration at lvl 18.
Andariel dropped a Nagelring (terrible 17% MF though), as well as a dual leech Two-Handed Sword which made things easier for a bit. After getting the cube and switching to BH, he ran Countess a few times and quickly was able to make a Stealth.
Now the plan is of course to rush to Hell LK to farm Enigma and CtA, then farm Hell Mephisto for further basics (Shako etc.). Having played CS Hammerdin a little for RFL testing purposes, I must say I kind of liked it again. So it's possible he'll stay a Hammerdin after all. However, the original Dreamer idea is still very much on the board. I might just let the rune drops decide what he's going to do from mid-90s onwards.
Everyone – I took the liberty to format the tables properly and re-include the Hall of Fame section. Make sure to have rich text editor enabled when updating! This guide has all the information if needed.
Great progress everyone!
But I honestly didn't see myself using Zeal all the time. So I ditched the original "melee only" idea and switched to BH/Concentration at lvl 18.
No ? Why !? Zeal is really nice !! It's Blessed Hammer I never really know how to use...
Little update for me too !
I get back to business with Prairie. She's just lvl 91, have a brand new Spirit shield, and I wondered what to do with her.
I made some Meph runs, trying to find some equipement pieces to improve (Shako, arachnid, and a nice Amulet whould be nice).
I found a few grailer, and a nice Stormshield (it's all about Monarchs !), but nothind useful for the moment.
Tried to go back to LK, found nothing but another Monarch, a Low quality, I turned into normal quality with the cube, then into a 4 socketed monarch. After about 130 hours without any 4s Monarch, I get 2 in a row.
With this second Monarch, I made a 35%FC Spirit.
After that, I decided I was tired of Lightning spells, and used the first respec quest to turn Prairie into a Blizzard / Fireball Sorceress. I never played this, I played the fire-oriented version, but not with blizzard as 1st skill.
First impressions : there is NO doubt, this one is really more powerful, and need less mana.
Killing Mephisto in /p1 is sooo fast !!!
I tried the Cow level twice, here again, it's a carnage. Found a Vex there
Chaos Santuary, and Baal throne room are 2 good places to be, now.
I thought my mercenary died too much, so I had a look to his stuff : Insight : out, I gave him an ethereal Reaper's toll I didn't use (because of the high need of mana from lightning spells).
I also made him a Treachery instead of Crow caw (?), and he dies much less... that's a good thing, I need his help for the cold immune (my fireball is a little weak, maybe I gave too much skill points to the cold tree...)
And now, I can clear the Chaos Sanctuary in /p5 easily, that's what I plan to do for a moment, this and a few ancient tunnels / Mephisto for some variety.
hmm, I have no idea about the ilvl thing.
I'm not sure what I did, to be honest I played this part a few days ago, and wrote the report this morning, so it's not really fresh in my mind. I remember using the cube formula from low quality to normal, then try to get 4 sockets, but maybe I missed this one and get 4 sockets in another white monarch I dropped ?
I check often this weapon rack in LK, and it gave me monarchs since, I may have get the 4sockets in another than the ugraded quality monarch. Sorry if I mixed the 2 stories.
Well, I got 2 spirit monarchs instead of zero, that's for sure
@Chaostar No problem! The repair and cube method is real nice when you need something with its ilvl 1 socket number such as mage plate or dusk shroud for enigma (3os). I wish it worked for spirit base
Lvl 92 hit with IpBanPrevales, and Pindle gave two nice gcs.
A "useless skiller" sent to twinked chars:
and this very nice one that can be used by her - would have preferred FRW but it may be useful too sometimes i guess:
Well it will be the last update for a while for her, based upon two runs xp it should take about 10 hours of Pindle running to hit 93. Priority will be on RFL round 3 for now!
Btw, I really don't see me coming back to my WW Barb in this challenge any time soon. It just feels too tedious to farm the necessary equipment I guess. Maybe I'll change my mind eventually. Chances are higher though that I'll start a Trapsin at some point instead. I recently started a twinked one, but since the appeal of this challenge remains very strong for me, it's most likely only a matter of time before I return to it. If it's not with the Barb, a Trapsin seems to be my top candidate.
I'm watching eSports, Speedruns or astronomy while AT farming. Whenever I MF-grind a place for more than 30 minutes without some kind of side-entertainment, I'm burning out quickly.
Same here! In fact, prearing for an upcoming assessment center I wanted to catch up on current developments on several topics. Thankfully there are podcasts providing exactly that, allowing me to learn and simultaneously rush the Pally through to Hell LK – multitasking RL and D2 ftw.
I went in speedrun style, but surprisingly got pretty good drops nonetheless. He picked up bases for Enigma, Insight, 4os Crystal Sword for Spirit and 4os Flail for Hoto along the way. Not a huge deal, but I know how annoying it can be to look for those later in an untwinked setting. (Though no elite eth Insight base, that can still potentially be annoying. ) Boss drops were very useful. After Nagelring from (normal) Andy, he got Bloodfist from (normal) Duriel and Wizardspike from (NM) Baal, along with Infernostride:
Other notable drops included Duriel's Shell (Merc's delight), Torch of Iro, Headstriker, Pul from NM HF and 2x Death's Touch.
Thanks to the Wizzy and Insight from Merc, the switch to Hell was quite smooth as he breezed through to LK with ease, having max resists (85 FR) and lots of mana to spam BH. Previously he was levelled to 65 doing P8 NM Eldritch runs, and BH dealt enough damage so that I only had to go down to P3 up to Hell LK (with the exception of Maggot Lair and Tal's Tomb ), arriving there at lvl 74.
Screenshots:
Nagelring (17 MF)
I only had the Insight runes once, so I was pretty happy about the 17 aura roll here.
Eldritch was run to quickly go from 55 to 65 before wrapping up NM and entering Hell. Best drop from this stretch:
First keeper drop from LK
Current gear is not great of course, but I had expected it to be much worse at this stage:
HF Merc with Insight, Duriel's Shell, rare helm with FHR and resists
Also can make Spirit sword and Lore at this point, not sure yet on how I want to run LK though.
In anticipation of LK running, I first maxed Vigor after BH was done, with Conc being next. A few points landed in HS and BA before arriving in LK. It took a while to roll his LK map, nothing seemed to be even close to an acceptable "2 campfires near WP". This was the first one that checked the boxes, but I'm not complaining:
It has a Crown Shield rack which I do hit for the moment. Far from ideal of course, but it's the highest block % normal shield, so quite likely his first shield Spirit will go in one of those once he starts teleporting. I may end up looking for ST racks at some point if I don't get a good one from normal runs.
But for now I'll be keeping those grinders around here company for a while.
I'm listening to music while playing D2. But even then, some things feel like a grind too much. I guess I could try some podcasts.
The issue with the Barb isn't only the grind though, but the fact that he just feels so underpowered, and is quite some gear away to get out of that zone. I briefly tried a fully decked out WW Barb in Travincal a few weeks ago, but they just might not entirely be my cup of tea. A bit of a shame in the case of Grapelike probably, since he lucked out on a Lo rune in LK very early on, so it's actually the runeword base I'm grinding for.
I'm often watching/listening to a stream, so that I can also take breaks from my runs by participating in the stream's chat. That way I get many tiny breaks in by just typing a couple of words/sentences between/during runs. I really need frequent "active" kind of distractions from the grind like that to prevent burning out. I mean, I love DII, but grind is grind.
The issue with the Barb isn't only the grind though, but the fact that he just feels so underpowered, and is quite some gear away to get out of that zone. I briefly tried a fully decked out WW Barb in Travincal a few weeks ago, but they just might not entirely be my cup of tea. A bit of a shame in the case of Grapelike probably, since he lucked out on a Lo rune in LK very early on, so it's actually the runeword base I'm grinding for.
28-33 seconds depending on picking. But I've had a hot start back with my Necro as well – he got a Ber before even having the runes for Harmony. Then he cooled off considerably, and Enigma ended up taking taking 3-4 hours longer than the statistical expectation based on his run times. Let's hope that won't repeat you never know in LK...
I gotta say I surely missed the excitement of untwinked play. It's in stark contrast to RFL, where a Ber is of course a great drop but it will make you go "ah nice, I'll take that" and not "OMG YES".
I gotta say I surely missed the excitement of untwinked play. It's in stark contrast to RFL, where a Ber is of course a great drop but it will make you go "ah nice, I'll take that" and not "OMG YES".
I have no clue what you mean LOL. Other than starting my blizz sorc as untwinked because it was my first char back into the fold a year or two back(really have no clue on the time lol, could be longer), I only have untwinked chars in the level 15 to 45 range right now.
All of my high level characters are twinkled and when I found my second Ber ever on SP a few days ago, I gasped out loud and walked out of the house that morning with some swagger!
Even more so when my first Jah ever dropped for my Zealdin from the first guy in Trav that run.
Seeing runes Ohm and up drop, make my adrenaline pump and I get giddy as a kid seeing the roller coasters coming into view from the distance, while approaching Cedar Point or other theme parks!
I want to get to the day where twinked high runes are just like "oh cool", but at the same time, I'm not so sure lol!
Untwinked characters are in my near future though. I understand how much more exciting it really is to find gear that is useful for the untwinked char you are playing. That is what I love about them, I just wanted to accumulate some wealth on my high level twinked ones first.
It's great finding even like decent rates and stuff that twinked mean nothing, but are awesome for the character you are on when you can't pull gear from your stashes and other chars!
I am on the side where a Ber on any char, is usually me gasping like when you get the most wonderful Christmas present as a kid. Haven't made it to the stage yet, where I can only calmly say "Oh, I'll take that" on a twinked char or any char lol. I flip out.
But i am not upset about that, the thrill of chasing the exciting items I know one day I'll likely have, keeps the game very thrilling for me. Really though, there is no end to where you have everything and can't improve. That is why we are all playing this game 15+ years later lol!
I just hope I never have a hard drive crash again. I assume many back up chars off the harddrive. Is using a zip drive the best method for that. This is I think my second or third go around because of I broke a laptop once and then my hard drive crashed a few years back. So this SP go around is just a few years young.
But I still have things I want to do way off in the distance, one of the main things being utilizing my almost nearly perfect Ethereal Heaven's Might with 2 sockets. It only is missing 2% ED. I would love to Zod(never found one ever in 15+ d2 years) and use a nice jewel or Ohm or Lo or Ber and have an item that although not as good as Grief obviously, will be infinitely more sexy.
Unless some rich person who wants something like that and can afford to go the sexy route, offers me up a nice bounty for it. I think it would be super cool to use down the road. But being not wealthy at all, I may try to trade it to someone who finds it as cool as I do.
The first hut on my LK map, has a weapon rack that drops mighty scepter at a very high rate. That is where I found it. So I imagine I may find more unique ones down the road. In fact I may have found a couple others, but the eth one 2%ed short of perf and the other stats being all perf I am pretty sure (the most important for sure), is by far the best and one of the coolest items I have ever found, along with maybe the +5BO,+6Item Find Barb Hat and some good rare rings/amulets. Just not rich enough to use it yet, unless I used it on one of those Assassins that shoot blades(blade furry?). Never played one before though.
@ffs
I did join, but my idea was entirely different than what this thread is about. I wasn't going for 99 at all, I tried to create good AT runner from zero. Now I no longer have fire to actually go on with it because it's too much work and LK farming.
I did think about going with new character, but it won't be untwinked. It will be assassin who won't use any gear from my stashes except for these:
Chaos
Superior Suwayyah
FalOhmUm
One Hand Damage: 286 - 385
Indestructible
Required Level: 57
Required Strength: 89
Required Dexterity: 89
Fingerprint: 0x3c09c412
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion
9% Chance to cast level 11 Frozen Orb on striking
11% Chance to cast level 9 Charged Bolt on striking
+35% Increased Attack Speed
394% Enhanced Damage
+2 to Attack Rating
Adds 216 - 471 Magic Damage
25% Chance of Open Wounds
+1 to Dragon Flight (Assassin Only)
+1 to Whirlwind
+10 to Strength
+15 Life after each Demon Kill
Ethereal
3 Sockets (3 used)
Socketed: Fal Rune
Socketed: Ohm Rune
Socketed: Um Rune
Fury
Superior Feral Claws
JahGulEth
One Hand Damage: 123 - 295
Indestructible
Required Level: 65
Required Strength: 103
Required Dexterity: 103
Fingerprint: 0x2cff04f4
Item Level: 98
Version: Expansion
+40% Increased Attack Speed
274% Enhanced Damage
Ignore Target's Defense
-25% Target Defense
20% Bonus to Attack Rating
6% Life stolen per hit
33% Deadly Strike
66% Chance of Open Wounds
Prevent Monster Heal
+5 to Frenzy (Barbarian Only)
+2 to Blade Shield (Assassin Only)
Increase Maximum Durability 12%
Ethereal
3 Sockets (3 used)
Socketed: Jah Rune
Socketed: Gul Rune
Socketed: Eth Rune
In any case it's not suitable for this thread, so it will be a separated journey. I mean one can't make such claws and not use them, right.
Nice progress @ffs and great rune luck. Also looking forward to the 98.5 update @buckcrazy As for me . . .
Patriarch Death and Hazade the A2 Might Merc, Lvl 94 (pic)
Death was my entry for RFL Rd 2, which allowed him to make some nice progress on a couple of fronts. A more detailed rundown is here in my post from the results thread, but the big takeaways were that he had very, very nice rune luck, actually taking second despite not having Enigma until the 15-hour mark.
Speaking of which, here’s the cubed Ber after the Sur dropped, the preparation with one of the Jahs dropped from Council and a 3os Mage Plate that had been taking up room in his stash since shortly before he hit level 93, and the major upgrade:
Other major improvements for Death were:
- His second fire resist RJoF, which went into the 1os CoA and has been Hazade’s hat since;
- This nice FCR ML ring that will be handy to keep 105 FCR on switch once he finds an upgrade for his 2/5 caster amulet;
- Wisp Projector that may get use for Baal runs;
- 250/19 Ravenfrost (currently equipped); and
- 50 MF War Travelers as an alternate to Goblin Toe.
There were other nice drops, of course, but those are the ones that he will likely use at some point without expectation to find an upgrade to replace it. His haul pick (after he’d done some Baal runs) shows remaining runes, so quite a nice haul and closing in on Lo for merc Fortitude and Ber for Beast.
As noted in the results thread:
PhineasB said:
This round gives the barb some interesting options for Nihl at 98-99 with Concentrate build. Cham in a helm for CBF for merc or to free up ring slot. Or he can cube a Zod and potentially have eBoTD if he picks up an eth berz axe.
The one hiccup was his second death: I hadn’t heard my wife get home, and I got startled right as Death was whirling through overlapping might and HF aura-ed Council. He died before I could hit Esc, but I successfully recovered the corpse to minimize XP loss.
So he was just shy of 93.6 at the end of the 20-hour set. Baal runs saw him to 93.8, and then I decided to farm essences for two respec tokens, planning to use one to rebalance stats and skills (Find Item is no longer needed) and have another handy in case needed based on future drops. Meph runs generated a Bane Ash, CS runs yielded a Gheeds upgrade, and Diablo dropped a slight Reaper’s upgrade, 216ED/13LL vs 212ED/12LL. He had also found a Reaper’s during RFL set, but it was worse on all fronts than his first.
Aside from charms, he’s nicely equipped, with Gore Riders and amulet (Metalgrid/Mara’s/Highlord’s) the meaningful upgrades remaining for Death, and Andy’s for Hazade. On the charm front, his resists are a bit low for lightning, with low poison also an annoyance for Achmel. He has three 126+ AR Steel GCs with minor secondary mods, the Gheed’s, and a 10/71 Sharp GC, with the rest a mix of resist/AR SCs with secondary mods. So much room for improvement in the backpack.
Code:
Gear
Grief PB x2
Wizzy x2 (Switch)
Guillame’s (Ruby damage jewel +strength)
Enigma Mage Plate
SoE (8LL/12% DR/14 mdr, missing Lem to up)
LoH
War Traveler (50 MF)
2/5 caster amulet with fire resist and 25MF
250/19 Ravenfrost
Mana leech rare with 120 AR and 19 LR
Backpack: Full with 1 Sharp GC, 3 Steel GC, Cube (with Goblin Toe), the rest SCs
Merc
CoA socketed with 18 FR RJoF
Duriel’s Shell
Reaper’s
Stash
Vamp Gaze
Arachnid’s
Gheed’s
Wisp, BKWB x2, dual leech rare, 10 FCR/ML rare
RJoF x2 (one damage, one fire resist)
SoE upgrade ingredients (Ko, pDiamond)
5 SCs with resists
Cham, Jah x2, Sur, Ohm, Gul, Ist
Token, 3 essences, armor cube recipe ingredients (for eth elite armor)
I will use the Token to respec (likely maxing Shout and adding a couple extra points to Natural Resistance) and then he will get a lengthy break. The next Baal runs will be with Quinta, who’s ready to start her push to 96.5.
But first order of business is using Pestilence’s last respec to get ready for RFL Rd 3, where he will be my entry at Nihl. With some practice runs and the 20-hour set, I’m hoping he gets to 98.25, assuming I can keep him from dying. And in case he does, we went ahead and made the second Enigma for corpse recovery kit, because why not
Keep up the good progress, everyone!
Good stuff as always @PhineasB. Two more untwinked Enigmas – crazy.
Speaking about Enigma, need... Luckily I ended up having quite some time today to grind LK a little more with Lucid. After finding Aldur's Boots, a plain 30 FRW circlet and making a Zephyr bow, he's up to 147% FRW now, which together with lvl 20 Vigor results in about 8.7 meters per second. Definitely worth stacking up on that. Run times are still about the same as before because I'm running a slightly longer route (for interesting reasons).
No further Vex+ runes unfortunately, but a couple of drops worth mentioning:
Yesterday's and today's runs together moreover netted 2x Pul, 1x life/FR SC, 3x life/CR SC, 2x life/PR SC and numerous skillers (Lightning, Combat Barb, 2x Necro Summon, Traps, Fire), 3os +3/15 ED sup Mat Bow.
After starting hot with the Ber I have slim hopes of getting his Enigma before RFL ends, so I'm motivated for now. Would love to run some CS with him in round 3. Seems very unlikely but who knows...
Alright. After making hoto and cta on the sorc, I started running tunnels. Took a little longer than I thought to get the last lvl today, but finally dinged 90 and thought that was a good place for an update.
First off she got a huge upgrade very early. In the first maybe 10 runs, the first white monarch she had seen dropped and got 4os in the cube. Only like 3 spirit rolls later:
This allowed 105 fcr which I enjoy quite a bit. And yeah thats 4x ptopaz full plate mail. Looks awful, but gotta get that mf. Had a few nice mf drops, along with a nice skiller for another character:
Also forgot to screenshot a Mav's armor she found. Good stuff! The eth 3skill eschutas I thought was quite fashionable, but I never really feel like it's worth using.
Also arkana has been wearing a 20@ mara's and counting herself lucky to have it, but right before she got lvl 90, a slight improvement dropped:
With my 40@ hoto and really nice res/life small charms, as well as a shimmering grand and large charm, my res is through the roof, when I would probably be fine with mid range values for it. I'll take it! Also this is my first lvl 90 character ever. And while thats a drop in the ocean on the way to 99, I was glad to get it!
Little update for Prairie.
Since she turned into a blizzard / fireball (weak fireball), it's a pleasure to play with her again.
She made a bunch of xp session between ancient tunnels and Chaos Sanctuary in /players7, the longer part is to way for my merc to kill of De Seis who is always cold immune
I only found a few nice runes and some useless grailers
Once she get to lvl 92, I get back to some item searching work from Mephisto, Pindleskin, and some rune in LK.
No real improvement, but this Ohm in a LK chest :
I have now runes for Call to arms (if I turn Puls and Um to Mal). Don't know if I make it yet, or wait for other runes.
Also found this nice thing, too bad it only has 1 socket
I get back to some Baal runs still in /p7, bosses are not really nice with me for now. At least I get xp
I also may start a big gamble / craft amulet session, especially because I can't get any real good amulet for the moment.
I still can improve a lot my equipement, which is for the moment :
Thanks, and sorry for her !
I'll probably end up with that CTA soon, I already died 15 times with her, and xp loss is not so huge if I take the body back, and since she's moved to blizzard I feel really safe...
Yes, make that CtA asap. I don't see a reason not to if you have the runes anyway. And it will help you to stay alive, but also to play more aggressively, keep your merc alive easier, ... Btw, you'll notice that xp loss will start to hurt the more you level up. So don't take it too light .
Thanks, I never played a caster paladin yet, so I wasn't sure it could be useful, but mods seemed really good, so I kept it.
In fact I still need a Mal for the CtA, I can cube it but I hope I'll find one sooner or later.
@Quinneczech : I notices my sorceress has about 300 more hp than your dead sorceress without CtA, maybe that's why I don't feel the urge to make this CtA ?
It's been a while, but Klaus has reached 97.75; his last stop before 98.
Allow me to talk to the void for a second. Fissure is weird, and I can't explain it. Now this could be a big case of confirmation bias on my part, but it certainly seems like Fissure has a tendency to have more successful hits on Nihlathak when there are monsters grouped around him (rather than him standing alone). Could it be that fissures have a "range" on them, and only ones that successfully score on a target generate damage instead of every single fissure that opens up (which would have many fissures causing damage to nothing at all)? This would mean that when there are monsters around Nihl a bunch of fissures will score "hits", and if they either have a range or some splash damage, then that would account for Nihl taking extra damage from all the surrounding fissures as well?
This doesn't seem likely at all, and I'm sure I'm just making things up and noticing stuff that doesn't exist at this point, but you have to keep yourself entertained somehow when running Nihlathak.
Speaking of running Nihlathak, now I'll get to the actual reason for this post; Klaus' progress.
The finds keep coming, with Soul Drainers, Carrion Wind, Arkaine's Valor before Klaus found his THIRD Ravenlore:
-19 eref (great roll!), +8 res all (meh roll). Absolutely insane that an untwinked fire druid should find THREE of these hats along the way. The D2 Gods sure can be funny sometimes.
More finds as Nightwings (+11%), a decent Gheed's (141/11/39), Andys and a Reaper's Toll. And would you look at that!
Code:
The Reaper's Toll
Thresher
Two Hand Damage: 54 - 641
Durability: 33 of 33
Required Level: 75
Required Strength: 107
Required Dexterity: 81
Fingerprint: 0xc31b45b7
Item Level: 95
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Unidentified
33% Chance to cast level 1 Decrepify on striking
204% Enhanced Damage
Ignore Target's Defense
Adds 4 - 44 Cold Damage Over 2 Secs (41 Frames)
15% Life stolen per hit
33% Deadly Strike
Requirements -25%
Ethereal
Mediocre damage roll, but eth Reaper's are always a fun find. Our first rune of the session came with a Vex, followed shortly by another NDE (if you can really call it one with 1k life left...).
Just goes to show how things can go south so quickly down there, that was 4k life gone in the time it took me to hit ESC. Klaus was, however, rewarded for staying alive:
Very nice, and his 2nd already from Nihl. One more Vex finished off the set, and his final pit stop before 98. He seems to already be doing much better with HRs than Eleanor did down here (she had just 2 Ber, 2 Ohm in all of 98-99), hopefully that keeps up and pads my HC stashes so that I have plenty to deed with other chars.
Other finds:
Sparking GC
Fletcher's GC
Acrobatic GC
@Pb_pal Dont post these NDEs, please. I am browsing this forum from my cell phone, and it is really similar to deeds screen.
Btw, how much PDR you have? If I ever make it to nihl farming at lvl 98 with my barb, I want to go the PDR way, so I am gathering all information available.
@Pb_pal
nice progress!
I tried for fun with my barb to teleport on nihla and covert into a bear from the beast-skill and it actually worked pretty well, if he teleports away u can qucikly get into normal form, tele on him and get into bearform again, i actually thought theres more delay between that transform stuff^^
Also tried it with wolfhowl helmed and transform in wolf and use that wolf attack skill, also worked pretty good^^
So what i wanna say, have u ever tried to play some kind of melee druid for nihla? i think it could be pretty good actually with fireclaw or feral rage^^
@Quinneczech - Just the 8% DR from Enigma, and then 11 PDR from Nature's Peace. Not very much in the grand scheme of things, I'm relying on high health and staying out of the action to keep me alive.
@Bewitch - I've never tried it myself but a melee druid could be interesting. I would imagine it would have to be a FC build, though I could see Feral Rage working as well. The main problem I think would be balancing damage with a decent FCR setup, since druids are dreadful for FCR breakpoints. I suppose you could have a dedicated FCR switch and forego CtA, since you'd be able to get decent life from transforming and oak. Hmm.
Although oak with druid and merc teleporting to Nihl seems recipe for brutal deeds from viper clouds. Druid doesn't have crowd control to neutralize them like assassin or necro, and delirium seems risky way to trigger confuse if teleporting to Nihl for melee. Maybe there would be enough HP to hit esc if things don't line up well upon initial teleport to Nihl.
Just some thoughts, after working through quite some map rolls to get one that is workable with necro with merc and IK (and option to cast confuse immediately upon landing on platform).
I've had a hot start back with my Necro as well – he got a Ber before even having the runes for Harmony. Then he cooled off considerably, and Enigma ended up taking taking 3-4 hours longer than the statistical expectation based on his run times. Let's hope that won't repeat
I felt I really jinxed it for me by saying that. Currently all D2 time goes into LK running, and yet again it's been quite brutal after the early Ber drop. It took another ~8 hours for anything above Ist to drop with another Vex. I was frustrated with the haul at that point and proceeded to quest him through to A5 Frigid Highlands after making his Hoto, which rolled an average 35@:
HF drop was Um. He then briefly gained another 2 levels running Eldritch for a change of scenery (now at 76), before heading back to LK. There the dry streak continued for quite some time until he was rewarded with an Ohm, and then another Vex, Ist and Gul followed within a few hours. I held back on making his CtA though – I might decide to cube up for Enigma, and for the moment I don't feel the need for extra life/mana. The next few hours again resulted in nothing meaningful, with a few Pul-Ist runes... Until the second big drop happened:
Interestingly he is still at zero Sur runes. Don't think I've ever found two Bers in LK without a Sur in between. Also at zero Combat skillers. :/ Screenshots of other drops, as well as list of further goodies found due to 10 picture limit:
Other highlights:
7 FHR, 11@ jewel
2x 20 life, 11 PR SCs
20 life, 5 LR SC
Tal's Helm, which will help Merc for now
3x Pul
1x Mal
31 life Trap Skiller
War Traveller (35 MF) – the Battle Boots rack already delivered 8x Aldur's Boots, but only this WT pair so far...
Given run counter doesn't work for me I don't know exactly the time spent so far, but I'd estimate I'm about 20 hours in altogether. So the second Ber drop put him back into expectation range more or less. Now he needs Sur + Lo to make Enigma if I decide to cube up to one Lo. But I think I'll continue running for hopefully 2x Sur and rather have runes for multiple CtA rolls if need be, haven't been too lucky with these in the past. Oh and I'll take a third Ber over two Surs of course.
I'd be very surprised if that's anything else than /p7.
@ffs Your story once again reminds me that I'll try to avoid LK as much as possible, if I ever decided to join with a new charater. A full 8 hours without a HR or even anything decent would completely destroy my will to even progress a character. Early on it's actually something I enjoy, because I see it as runs with potential upgrades (rares, charms, jewels, ...) all along, and the possibility of juicy runes as a nice little extra. But beyond that ...
@T72on1 I'd like to avoid it as well, but logic dictates it. I'd rather spend some 30 hours for Enigma than an extra 200 hours or so on the way to 99 due to not having Teleport. I find the latter much more frustrating and honestly less fun than having Enigma for the long run, and chances on scoring the Enigma runes while doing "normal" runs are astronomically low (even though I'm aware others have had that kind of luck here). As you said you can also load up on charms etc. in LK. Plus it's very satisfying when the boring grind and perseverance is finally rewarded once you have it.
Alright, another 50 mio done, some nice drops as well.
Also pretty funny, i found 2 legendary mallets within 3 mins (made a clip of that)
Not so funny, but sill nice is, that i found another 2 surs runes (sadly after i grinded a week of lk for that ber for the beast^^)
Some news from Prairie. She's past half lvl 92 now, doing various runs (CS, Baal, AT mainly).
I died a few times, and now I'm convinced that I need that this CtA Just a MAL Rune to find, and that's good.
No nice drop to mention, but a resist improvement with a better Vipermagi (+14% all)
By the way, I never noticed my Reaper's toll's %ed roll was so good !
I played with a non eth cryptic axe insight all the time, just for the mana bonus, and I don't even remember when I dropped this !
It's a relief, my merc is efficient. I wonder if I may switch to a might paladin, just to boost his damages ? holy freeze is less useful with the decrepify cast ?
I have a question : when I respec to Blizzard/Fireball, I was too light with the fire skills, my fireball deals too few damage. Most of the time, I let my mercerary kill cold immunes (mage knight in the CS for eg.)
It slows me , even if I know I don't have to kill everyone, but sometimes I have to, especially in Baal's throne room.
So, my options are :
- respec again, with more fireball synergy (it means less blizzard synergy) to be more balanced
- respec again, with another secondary spell, if any can be more efficient than fireball with 23 or 24 skill points invested (firewall ?)
- respec again to pure blizzard, at least I'll kill even faster other monsters, and manage somehow to get my mercerary even more efficient (need a good helm for him at least)
I think 3rd option would be better... I'm not sure yet what to do.
@Chaostar Somehow your post removed the table formatting again – fixed it now but please try to make it stick, quoting previous tables and using rich text editor.
I have not yet started RFL R3 in hopes of finishing Enigma soon with Lucid. He's slowly progressing and picked up another 2x Pul, 2x Um, Mal, 2x Gul. Now Sur + Ohm would do, should I decide to cube up from below Sur.
Still a little disappointed that no Surs are in sight, but he had two quite nice drops:
Courtesy of a corpse. I had expected a long search for a very good Spirit base and potentially even using a Larzuk quest as @PhineasB resorted to, so this certainly made things easier. His second Spirit roll got 35 FCR/90 Mana and I kept it for now. He has another ~80 sets of Spirit runes to work on that Mana roll at a later point.
Second nice drop was his first skiller:
He also found a near perfect Nagel (30/71) and another pair of WT (39 MF), these will come in handy once he starts to MF. Let's just hope those Surs finally show up soon.
Wow! Well, I guess there is an alternative to farming Enigma with just Surs from LK... namely with just Bers from LK. I can't say for sure but I think this ended up taking about 26-28 hours, pretty happy with that.
Big question was of course which base. I don't particularly like the BP look on Paladins, but not a huge fan of LP either. Unfortunately the (IMO) better looking leather type armors that can get 3os have strength requirements that are a bit too high to justify, so I ended up using a BP. (Sorry no proper build-up screenshot given almost no cubing.)
While I was at it, I rolled his (first) CtA, which of course got +3 BO, as I always seem to do with first try here. I have the runes for another roll but will wait for a bit in hopes of getting a decent staffmod base.
So he donned some MF gear and currently looks like this:
Congrats on the Enigma! That's pretty amazing to pick up 3 Bers without a solitary Sur, with the last, what, an hour after you had complained of lack of progress toward Enigma
Yeah in fact more like 30 minutes of running after complaining... which yet again proved to help. I checked of course and none of the Ber patterns was new – indeed unexpected to have three Bers make up for the total lack of Sur drops. But I'm not complaining (for now ).
Pestilence has found his map after quite a bit of rolling and testing. What I found is that the map with spawns around Nihl's platform makes a much bigger difference for the Necro than the Assassin or Sorc. The Sin shut down projectiles with CoS, and Sorc was generally safe with step-back technique from merc (as was the merc) and confuse generally proc'ing quickly.
It's different with the necro due to IK, which like the merc likes charging forward headlong. I was losing merc every 5 runs with some maps where he and IK were in the viper clouds. Even with confuse, I couldn't get all of them due to multiple spawn points around the platform. I also couldn't use NE arm platform due to limited space past the platform: the merc got "stuck" regularly where necro blocked him in. He got this sweet base in the first handful of runs:
After getting 4M or so, he had a death as I got frustrated with having to bail / losing merc too many times and pushed his luck with vipers around. With a big assist to @ffs for his vids (both for technique and seeing his map with almost no spawns in corners past the platform and limited spawns on other side of platform), I committed to rolling a map with limited spawns. I also switched up to dual Dwarf Star and a 2/10 necro caster amulet (sort of; see below).
He probably worked through 30 maps before getting a low-density-around platform, two-shrine map. Along the way he picked up Arkaines:
On the current map, he hit 98.05 yesterday and has since gotten his RFL set under way.
Observant readers will notice the red shading on the background for the rings in the screenshot above. When swapping in the second Dwarf Star, I didn't have a second that matched, so pulled two matching ones out of my stash. Apparently, I hadn't checked to see if they had been ID'ed, and didn't notice they weren't until seeing that screenshot when he hit 98.05. He's quite a bit sturdier with the dual Dwarf Star's actually equipped . . .
With S&E lag, he isn't going to reach the 3.5M/hr range like Ric (not to mention that I'm not nearly as fast as @ffs on the character / difficulty selection or scanning drops). But it appears he will be north of the 2.5M/hr benchmark, factoring in XP shrines and aborted runs. So he should eclipse 3.3B on this set if I can keep him alive.
He still takes a bit more attention to play than Mercy or Hiatus did (and certainly than Phaedrus in CS), meaning I can't play quite as long without breaks. So the 20-hour set over three weeks is a great format to get him started into 98-99
Thanks again to @ffs for all the testing with Ric and the vids, which are helpful. I'll try to record some runs so others have the benefit of seeing two different maps. Good luck to everyone who's participating in RFL with their untwinked 99ers!
@Chaostar Somehow your post removed the table formatting again – fixed it now but please try to make it stick, quoting previous tables and using rich text editor.
@Chaostar No worries. Apart from the links, @ioupainmax put a lot of effort into the formatting the table so that it's displayed in monospaced font etc. while editing, which makes it much easier to update them. That was gone as well. There's a description linked in the first post here.
@PhineasB I know what you mean regarding Necro gameplay, takes a little longer to get some routine with it, but once you do it's pretty straight forward. GL!
So I've been lurking and considering playing a character to 99 since...2006 or so. I think I'd like to do it with a non-sorc character, even if that does mean a few thousand visits to LK. I'm torn between poison or bone necro. Bone necro has a bit of extra safety with bone armor, but I feel like poison's AOE is solid and it looks like that's what Ric used to hit 99 from 98. A few questions:
Why summoner to 98 then switch? Is it because bosses are the only real source of xp? If so, then why not switch earlier since CE does most of the heavy lifting anyway?
Does it matter between bone and poison for killspeed?
How much (if at all) is a synergized bone armor worth?
@testyfish Kind of depends on gear as well, but in my case the build choice was down to which target provided best XP at a given point in time. With the gear available to me, I was best off running Baal waves until 97, and for that Summoner was better. In general, PN is the strongest build. But yes, in any event CE is what deals the real damage.
Small update on Lucid, who's on his way to 89 running Mephisto. Looking for Shako and Arachnid Mesh in particular, things started out with a major heartbreak:
That hurt! To make things worse, despite gaining ~10 levels at Mephisto (he did run the Pit for a while in between), he still got neither Shako nor Arach. However, there were several helpful drops along the way:
Andy's, Mara's, HoZ and Wisp may all see use at some point. Also a second Metalgrid wasn't too bad!
After getting another base from Mephisto, he rolled another CtA – and finally broke my untwinked 99er CtA curse.
Couple of Pit runs for a change of scenerey also delivered an eth Hellforge Plate, which was cube socketed and turned into a Stone as an interim Merc armor.
Unfortunately, we still can't handle P7 CS runs comfortably enough, so I have not yet started an RFL set. Plan now is to continue with Meph runs for Shako and ideally (non-eth) Arach. Will probably not stop running him until at least one of those drop – let's hope that happens soon! #complaining Next up will be a proper Insight base for Merc, after which he'll hopefully be able to transition to CS for good.
I think I can safely step into here again. I had been playing a necromancer some time ago, actually posted a couple of updates in this thread... well I rip'd that guy in Lower Kurast after a few thousand runs. Being highly superstitious I was convinced that posting in this thread had jinxed the character and I rerolled only to rip again in exactly the same way.
Seems posting in this thread wasn't a curse so I can safely return
I've been playing yet another necro (hopefully third time lucky) for a little while but didn't even bother posting until I'd finished the LK runs. No run counter running but it seemed pretty fast, I'd guess around 2500 runs spread over a few weeks.
It was slightly painful to cube Lo runes but after the fourth one dropped I thought why not. I can still make Fortitude twice even after burning two Lo runes to make the final Sur.
Currently level 87 and magic finding in the pits as a summoner, seems ok so far. Will try and post regular updates. Fingers crossed the table works.
This! I have about 2600 runs on my LK counter. Not a single Lo rune, no Ist, probably not as many Vex. So, either you got very lucky or did a lot more runs than that. Either way an impressive haul!
@1have2much3time Way to make a splash, welcome back and GL!
As for me, Lucid finally has a Shako:
He finished LK at 76 and it now dropped just before hitting level 90. Given there were only ~2 levels gained form Pit runs mid-80s, it goes to show how long it can take to obtain such a basic item – and if it does it makes you realize how good it really is...
It was kind of worth it running Meph though as he dropped good stuff overall. Highlights included an eth Titan's and several perfect rolls on HoZ, Reaper's, Raven:
In total he found 10 RBFs from Meph, though only the above 5/5.
Merc (HF): 240/12 non-eth Reaper, Steelshade (11 absorb), eth bugged Stone Hellforge Plate
I like the Merc setup a lot for now. Decrep allows P8 two Seal CS runs even with my current gear, and Steelshade + Stone make him tanky enough for 2 Seal runs. I'll take the necessity to pot mana potions for now, though I'll likely switch back to an Insight setup once I got a proper base.
8.8k BH damage
75@
3100 life/650 mana after BO
With the above gear he is currently at around 370 MF with 75 FCR breakpoint. I could hit 125 FCR when going down to ~260 MF even without Arach, but for now I’ll try to maximize S&U drops.
His to do list for now, in order of increasing RNG-dependency:
Craft 2/10+ FCR amulet once he gains 3 more levels. Apart from the magic amulets he has ingredients for ~150 crafts
Eth elite 4os polearm for Insight (I might play around with Delirium as well if I get a base)
Ber or Vex+ for Merc's CoH or Fortitude
The sooner the better: Arachnid Mesh (that eth one from Meph still hurts ), Skillers, BKWB/SoJ
After I got to the 125% fcr breakpoint with my untwinked Hammerdin, I couldn't go back. It makes such a big difference. Maybe not in killing speed, never tested that to be honest. But it certainly felt a lot better.
I'm using Reaper's on my twinked Hammerdin too. I don't miss the Insight too much, as a quick flash of redemption fills the blue orb right away. And I regularly need it to refill my red orb anyway, so it's not like I lose a lot of time with it. Much more convenient than potting.
Sure 125 FCR is the way to go, I just considered the extra ~120 MF more beneficial at this time... Though now that you mentioned it, I should test to which degree any MF difference is compensated by faster runs with 125 FCR. If I don't lose out on much I'll indeed switch to 125 right away. As for Merc weapon, ultimately I think I prefer Insight. Also never got entirely comfortable using Redemption, I hate waiting for the pulse – time spent not killing or teleporting.
I cannot run less than 125fcr on my Hammerdin anymore. Once you tasted the sweet fast breakpoint, you can't go back.
Incredible drops from meph, ffs! Perfect HoZ as well as Ravenfrost is a great achievement!
He finished LK at 76 and it now dropped just before hitting level 90. Given there were only ~2 levels gained form Pit runs mid-80s, it goes to show how long it can take to obtain such a basic item – and if it does it makes you realize how good it really is...
Lucid has hit level 95 running CS for his RFL set. Runs are not entirely focused on XP but somewhat of a balanced approach, doing 2 Seal runs but also hitting bosses and "worthy" amounts of Storm Casters and large groups in between.
To run something else for a few minutes, I decided to go for a couple of Meph runs before going to bed yesterday, still hoping for Arachnid Mesh. Glad I did – 6th or 7th run:
Nice! And it wasn't eth either. This finally allowed easy 125 FCR together with >3k life and >300 MF. (SoJ/BKWB would have been awesome, but alas the ring above was another Nagel.) So far he already crafted 96 caster amulets, with a few good results but nothing useful to him. However, he had this very useful drop early into his CS runs:
This replaced the Mara's he was using, and unless a very good craft ammy shows up I don't see myself going back anytime soon. Just perfect for 2 Seal runs at least – I feel the lower damage is more than made up for by being able to play much more aggressively, i.a. teleport right into Infector's group. Heaving read up on @PhineasB's experience with Phaedrus, I gather that 2 Seal runs are ideal until level 97. So I'm hoping I'll be able to craft a good FCR amulet until then to have more options to try at that point when he will start to include De Seis and Diablo.
Of course rune drops will not be reported until after RFL ends, but here's a few crafts/drops he got in the meantime:
As for his RFL set, he's just past the half way mark. Runs are very comfortable (especially after switching to Rising Sun), I forgot how cookie cutter Hammerdin really was even with mediocre gear. This is what he's using now:
Shako (PTopaz)
Enigma BP
Hoto 35@
35 Spirit (43@ ST)
Rising Sun
Magefist
FCR ring
Nagel
Arach
WT
Merc (HF): Insight (non eth CA), Stone (ebug HF Plate), Crown of Thieves
Overall I'm very happy with his progress. I should be able to get a few hours today to hit maybe ~15 hours for the RFL set, after that I won't be able to play D2 until mid next week.
Yeah, as I said progressing with him made me remember how OP the build really is. At this stage at least he's definitely the fastest of my three 99ers.
Admittedly his CS map is fantastic, might be best CS map I've had on any char. Most of the time it spawns 2-4 packs between Vizier and Infector seals, 2-3 shrines in CS and a whopping 4 extra shrines near Black Marsh WP (huge when including Diablo for XP later on). There's actually a good chance I won't socket a Merc headpiece anytime soon because I don't want to roll it away. But remains to be seen once I move on from 2 Seal runs.
not much time coz of RL, so the few hours i got was spend to play, that s why this update needed some time.
Found my last missig Sur for Eni at Run 1053. ~16hours in
Decided to make some more RWs , got 2 oOs Monarchs and 2x Thresher ( one eth one non eth) laying arround.
After the non eth thresher was trash , i was hoping at least for 5os to make Obedience.
Second Monarch rolled 4os, this are the outcomes:
And on first roll
after this i did some progress, did Anya and some Pit and overall MF runs to lvl 85. Want to enjoy my Eni for a bit
Now I m back to more LK runs, still Runes for Be ast/Hoto, CTA, Infi missing.
777 Runs/ near 10 hours in so far:
Run:107 Um, 1x Lem, 472 Vex, 486 Mal, 508 Lem, 527 Lem, 537 Pul, 542 Mal, 697 Gul, 725 Um, 746 Vex
Light 18 life GC
could cube up to make CTA and Hoto, not decided now what to do, still just running LK with spirit sword, fhr and life boost from this feels compftopal enoguth atm for me
Welcome back @1have2much3time and great progress @nMEKn and especially @ffs with Lucid. The Hammerdin really does shine up to 98, or at least that’s when things slowed down for me
* * *
After hitting the 10-hour mark for the RFL Rd 3 set with Pestilence, I decided to take a break for some Baal runs. Quinta was shy of 96.1 from doing 4-5 Baal runs as a break from Nihl runs, and the last two days saw her to 96.5.
Starting off, she kept Razortail, which had been used for Cows in RFL Rd 1, with her 2/9 caster amulet getting the 68 FCR breakpoint. I also moved in a few extra SCs to max lightning resists and others to 50+, along with Aldur's boots. Relatively early on, she picked up a nice Ruby GC of Vita, which replaced a Ruby of Sustenance one.
Around this time, the inability to equip Highlord’s and it’s extra IAS was becoming a drag. Baal actually was taking a while She still doesn't have a mana leech FCR ring option, so I figured he would go down faster and speed up the runs with Arachnid and maxing pierce, even if it cost me fully synergized LF a few percentage points less than 100% pierce.
We didn’t have Diablo essences, so I went to CS to farm two (plus one extra from Andy, which fell on the second run). An eth Nightwing’s dropped from Diablo as she closed in on the quarter mark for the level. After picking up the second essence from Diablo, we respec’ed and went back to Baal. Highlord’s allowed me to swap out the Amber SCs, which are MF for now.
Baal definitely dropped quicker with the faster IAS breakpoint, and still >90% pierce. As we settled into the routine, a nice eth Sacred Armor dropped, which obliged by picking up 4os in the cube, and on the same run Baal coughed up a Pul. Then this sweet SC fell from Baal’s waves:
The merc was still squishy, so I went back and checked status on finally replacing the Duriel’s with something better. I had Ohm and Vex stashed, and enough lower runes to cube up a second Vex minus a Pul, which I then realized Baal had dropped So we prepped for Fortitude, with a nice upgrade for Kasim:
No real drops of note for the next ~40M or so worth of runs, which is typical. [Edit: Except for a 24@ Mara's.] For the half level as a whole, drops were pretty limited, although the Fortitude upgrade was enormous.
The main thing is how fast she is, even with just 2 skillers. With the Highlord’s/Arachnid set up that she had from around 96.25 on, she finishes the runs before BO runs out, so less than 3 min/run (170s BO with BC active). So, unless I messed up the math, she’s averaging close to 12M/hr, or a little more than 2 hours per tenth of the level Much faster than Mercy’s Baal runs, and faster XP-wise than Phaedrus who had the fastest XP gain at this stage of my untwinked 99ers so far. I think it will only take 11 hours or so to finish the level
Re 98-99 on Paladin, I know you and @Neksja stayed in CS, but was there any decisive reason not to go Smiter for Nihl? That's my plan at least, I like changing targets (and running Nihl) anyway. I'll run a few tests after RFL. PI rolls could be annoying to deal with, but it should be considerably faster than P1/P7 CS runs still. I managed ~3.5m/h with Necro and I'd be surprised if Smiter can't get something similar at least...
@ffs I definitely gave it thought, but a couple things kept him in CS.
First, I ended up enjoying those runs as a change, and wanted to get 99 on a target other than Nihl with one of my characters (but I'm not masochistic enough to do it on Baal ). Also, a lot of the good drops from Nihl come from the mobs around him, and so single-target wasn't as interesting, similar to my reason for not going Blova for Hiatus. 3-seal runs definitely deliver on the rune front, and I was hoping to make serious progress on the runeword grail front with him. Finally, he had only one re-spec left and his gear was not optimal for smiter, if I recall. So rather than fiddling with one of my twinked characters, I just stuck with CS.
That said, assuming Lucid has the gear, I think it would definitely work nicely, especially since you don't have bad S&E lag for those runs. When Phaedrus started skipping boss packs in CS, he was very close to 2.5M/hr, so I think you are correct that Nihl runs will be faster XP for you! Good luck
Made some progress this weekend and quite enjoying pit runs. Anything but LK. First big upgrade was a 4os monarch for spirit, rolled 34% but need some other basics before worrying about breakpoints anyway.
Two other nice drops, first very useful:
Second, useless (on this guy) but always nice one:
50 hours !! of play time with Prairie since last update, including 20 hours for the RFL (won't report now what I found).
First of all, I respec again to full Blizzard. I already did ridiculous fire damage in the Chaos Santuary, at least I kill not cold immune at full speed, my merc deals with De Seis.
Once I get to lv 93, I made a lot of meph runs, with mf stuff at /p1, in a new map, which is also a really good AT map.
Results weren't as good as expected, I needed at least a Shako, an arachnid, Mara or Tal Amulet, all I found was grailers, and War Travelers. More MF can't hurt, even if I have a little strength issue now.
I get back to CS and AT (I can't stay too long running the same area), I experienced stupid printscreen death (it was NOT the good time to take a picture, especially just to immoralize the 3rd or 4th vipermagi )
Finally, I get one piece I was looking for in the golden chest of the AT, which usually delivers loads of coins and magic stuff, this time it contained only one unique amulet
I started another huge session of Meph hunt, taking advantage of the nice map, and it was painful, but I finally get another good something.
I also decided to invest in a CTA (good one, but I had better), could save me some other stupid death, and my merc gets good use of the extra life.
So extra dmg, extra MF, lots more of mana and life, and a few more hours to get to lvl 94.
So I'm finally entering into this. I think I've avoided posting because I wasn't sure if the character would make it this far. BareBear_Where, the HC Fire Claws/Maul hybrid We'll see if/when the build changes as I reach higher levels...I can't imagine that I'll be able to reach 99 just walking around, lol.
Currently doing great. I've been running The Pit and Countess for a while now, leveling up after finish NM. Still have yet to get a lem/pul/um/mal/ist...slow going with single target attack and no FRW!
But I have a question regarding gear. I've been passively shopping charsi while doing these runs and very luckily shopped a jewelers ancient armor of amicae The problem is that when I swap it out for my Lionheart (30@res) my resists drop to 38/50/58/6. As you can tell I switched out some charms after swapping armors to boost my resistances.
What do you guys think? Should I put 4 sol runes into it? Should I socket the armor with 1ral/3sol? Should I stick with the Lionheart? Personally, I feel like the 1ral/3sol option would be best. It would net me 34pdr, and my resistances would be 68/50/58/6. But I'd love a second opinion.
Also, super stoked on this insight I made for my moron. It may not be eth, but check out the dmg/crit rolls!
Code:
Insight
Thresher
RalTirTalSol
Two Hand Damage: 52 - 506
Durability: 58 of 65
Required Level: 53
Required Strength: 152
Required Dexterity: 118
Fingerprint: 0x4701c080
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Level 13 Meditation Aura When Equipped
+35% Faster Cast Rate
259% Enhanced Damage
+9 to Minimum Damage
218% Bonus to Attack Rating
Adds 5 - 30 Fire Damage
Adds 75 Poison Damage Over 5 Secs (125 Frames)
+6 to Critical Strike
All Stats +5
+2 to Mana after each Kill
23% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
4 Sockets (4 used)
Socketed: Ral Rune
Socketed: Tir Rune
Socketed: Tal Rune
Socketed: Sol Rune
edit: Yes, I suppose my first post should include my gear.
Rockstopper
Athena's
Lionheart/Jeweler's of Amicae
Angelic's Ring
Angelic's Amulet
10%fcr/5%ml/3pdr safety craft ring
Death's Gloves
Death's belt
Rare boots: 10fhr/25cr/35lr/22fr
Demon Limb on swap
FWIW, I just ran a few tests with twinked Smiter for Nihl and it works very well. Preferred setup so far was with Grief + upped HoZ, leaving Merc in town. I found Exile is not required (the main question I wanted to answer was whether its LT is necessary for life upkeep). The only better option would be certain rare/magic shields... but I'm not counting on finding a godly one. (Phoenix is bad due to the cast delay issue, so Grief is really the only extra runeword required for Lucid.)
The build is generally very fast, only thing I'm not yet sure about is how to deal with PI rolls. Solutions could be Lacerator or Reaper, though Viper rolls are annoying with Merc and Grief is amazing generally. Haven't tested Vengeance yet, could be worthwhile using it as a PI backup even if not fully synergized...
But even the worst case scenario (skipping PI rolls) should outperform CS. So unless I absolutely want to run more CS by the time he hits 98, I'll switch to Nihl and defer further Smiter tests until then.
Cool. If my twinked Hammerdin ever reaches 98, I might try out Nihl too. Although doing it all the way in CS seems very nice too. Especially since I'm more interested in runes than in lvl 99.
Not sure if Nihl is worse than P1/P7 CS for drops to be honest. P1 Seal bosses aren't exactly top tier HR targets and they don't drop all S&Us either. Personally I also got most 98-99 drops from Nihl himself and rarely from his entourage, so I wouldn't mind the single target aspect much. For me at least it's going to be about XP/h and which target I feel like when the time comes... which is still going to be a while.
The mobs dropped lots of runes for Mercy for 98-99, less for Hiatus, and Mercy had a nice haul, Hiatus less. So RNG likely plays a big roll if not single-target on Nihl. Pestilence's luck hasn't been stellar so far, but I remember looking at drop odds at an estimated 10 non-Nihl kills per run, and concluding it would make difference over the full level. It would be interesting to see what someone who's better with the math would conclude.
With hammerdin, you can switch to p7 for Vizier for not-at-all slower runs, with extra rune drops. Phaedrus ran p7/p1 (de Seis)/p7 for most of the last level, with minimal impact on XP/hr. But he also hit bosses for quite a bit, which added to his rune haul but slowed XP by ~.3/hr. If XP is main focus, Nihl is probably best, especially if S&E lag isn't an issue, as for @ffs . But if you aren't averse to an extra 15-20 hours and are after runes, I think CS is a great option.
This. Since I already have a 99er, I don't mind doing a bit longer to get there again, and I'd mainly be after HRs and grailers anyway. So I'd play /p7 all the way (Diablo caps out at /p7 when it comes to xp, right, but seal bosses at /p8?), so I don't have to switch player settings all the time. Since this is a twinked character, in the end this approach still woudn't take longer to get to 99 than my untwinked one.
@T72on1 it's more like a project to start than a go-now, i'll level necros to hell+ before - or beside - but I like the idea to have always some low level character questing
I have said this many times before, and will probably do so many times again until I finally bite the bullet, but the question for me entering this challenge with another character isn't a matter of 'if', but a matter of 'when'. The attraction of the challenge on it's own, but to an equal extent the attraction of the chatter and theorycrafting about it in this thread, is just too big not to.
For now I'll already move Grapelike to the 'Resting Heroes' table, since I haven't played him for a very long time, and I don't see myself playing him anytime soon. Trapsin is still most likely as my next entrant, although the fact that she requires both Enigma and Infinity in the long run and I don't plan to do LK much keeps me looking for other options to some extent.
Sorry for the double post. But thinking about this some more, and reading around about builds, I'm really tempted to try this with a full Lightning Sorc. Even better: with a CB/Nova/ES Sorc. Won't be the fastest killer out there, surely initially, but I like both those skills a lot, so it should be fun. Also saves me the trouble to make an Enigma, and I don't have to walk LK, but I can tele it instead. Another motivation is that one of the 10 grailers still missing for me is Griffon's. I might as well hunt for it with a character who can actually use it.
Initial gear shouldn't be too hard to come by, as I already should get quite far with Spirit/Spirit (or even Splendor), Stealth, Magefists, fcr rings, fcr circlet, Lore, Crescent Moon, ... and an Insight merc initially. Memory Staff even is a cheap alternative on switch until I get CtA. Pindle and Eldritch are good sources for xp and mf for such a sorc early on, both having low LR.
Like I said, she won't be as fast as those Blizz Sorcs, Hammerdins, LF Zons and Trapsins out there, but I don't mind too much, as I see this as a very long time project (as in: more than getting a 99er always is), switching between this Sorc and my twinked Hammderin and other characters from time to time.
Somebody will probably come in and burst the bubble for me, but until then ... I really like the idea .
I saw a nice build around ES+CB, based on reduce damage and reduce magic damage, it seemed nice, hard to kill sorceress, except by mana burn monsters.
I always wanted to try this, but never had time, so you should do it !
Because I read about such a build in the mat/pat compendium, stating that CB and Nova complement each other well. Which could be true, based on my experience with both skills. But I might start out by maxing CB, Lightning, LM and TK first and then see how it goes.
Of course CS is a great 98-99 choice for Hammerdin, and I enjoy finally running it with a 99er, but remains to be seen how excited I still feel about it once I hit 98. I generally expect the overall package (XP, S&Us and accounting for runes as well) to be more appealing at Nihl.
@T72on1 Why not! My 99er Sorc almost entirely leveled with Lightning. Assuming you farm LK at least for Infinity of course. Nova/ES Sorc is a good P7 Pit runner, she could level up to 98 relatively quickly there (and find Griffon's hopefully!) – though I don't know how well she performs untwinked. But if it doesn't work out you can always go for Baal runs with Lightning.
Nice. Good to know. I forgot about that. I guess I'll be off rereading your initial posts then .
LK you say? You know how I feel about that place . Having said that, I will be hitting that area when I reach Hell yes. If I'll get Infinity completely will depend. I just don't mind that much to do the area this time around, since I won't have to walk, but I'll be able to teleport. So yeah, since it's a very easy way to find rares, charms, maybe bases, all around the good stuff you don't have when entering Hell, I'll be doing LK runs. But when I feel I have gotten some upgrades there, I'll probably move on to Pindle and then Pits first, regardless if I have found the runes for Infinity by then or not.
There's one downside to all of this. I'm not sure if I'll still be doing runs for the RFL next time I can play, or that I'll start this character right away.
I absolutely love ES on a softcore light sorc. Getting infinity is a must though for questing (possible without infinity with much patience, pulling a single council member at a time for merc to kill). I never managed it on ladder where I mainly ran keys with her. I prefer lighting as main attack though. 117 fcr, around 30-40 mdr and pdr and you are immune to pretty much anything that does not mana burn. Makes me want to respec my untwinked orballer now...
A few updates. I decided to go ahead and kill Baal because I was under the delusion that hell cows would be simple and easy to farm. I also thought this would be 100% necessary since there really aren't that many places a Fissure druid can farm. After respec'ing to a fissure druid I realized that while Fissure is good...it isn't THAT good (though I did net an Um rune from the two runs I did). However, all is well, I've decided to run NM Cows and Meph for a while to build up my crafting hoard, improve my charms, and find quality of life items that will be necessary for me to run harder areas in Hell. I was going after Hell Andariel for a bit but accidentally created a normal game and lost my fantastic map D: I decided to hell with it
Items I'm hoping to find:
Ravenfrost
Jalal's
Skullders
Eth Feral Axes (for imbue and Oath)
LoH (I get the feeling NM Meph can't actually drop these)
Gore
Guillame's
Steal Skull
Pul/Mal
I luckily found a Ribcracker which I think will be put to good use when I use my final respec back into either a pure Mauler or Maul/FC hybrid. I'm also thinking about Fury...haven't decided yet. Besides Oath, Tomb Reaver, and Ebotd, upped Ribcracker is hard to beat.
A few helpful items
Code:
Ribcracker
Quarterstaff
Two Hand Damage: 60 - 163
Durability: 26 of 130
Required Level: 31
Required Strength: 25
Fingerprint: 0x898045ac
Item Level: 75
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+50% Increased Attack Speed
+50% Faster Hit Recovery
280% Enhanced Damage
Adds 30 - 65 Damage
50% Chance of Crushing Blow
+100% Enhanced Defense
+100 Defense
+15 to Dexterity
+100 Maximum Durability
Coral Small Charm of Good Luck
Small Charm
Required Level: 33
Fingerprint: 0x724e60d9
Item Level: 64
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Lightning Resist +8%
6% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Amber Small Charm of Good Luck
Small Charm
Required Level: 33
Fingerprint: 0xebaad9b9
Item Level: 73
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Lightning Resist +11%
7% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
And so it begins for TooMuchEnergy, my new entry in this fantastic journey. Man, it feels good to be back. I blame you all for this .
TooMuchEnergy will be a CB/ES Sorc. I know I talked about a CB/ES/Nova variant at first, but after doing a bit more reading and research, the plan for now is to go full CB, so I can also focus on the ES component as much as possible.
For now the plan is to stick to this build all the way to 99, doing Nihl runs from 98 to 99 by self-wielding Infinity and skipping the merc alltogether. Obviously we'll have to see if I ever get that far, and if so, if that plan turns out to be a good one. The main point is that I'm fully planning on staying away from Lightning and CL, and stay CB all the way.
Before that I want to go through normal and nightmare as fast as possible, leveling up on Eldritch and/or Pindle. For now the plan in Hell is to get to AS first, gain some levels there (mainly killing the Ghosts) and keep my fingers crossed for some juicy runes or other good drops while doing so. Then proceed to Eldritch / Pindle and further level there if I can kill them fast enough, followed by LK runs. If my killing speed against those isn't good enough (which I doubt), it'll be the other way around. After that it's probably Pits, but I might switch things up if I feel like it. Unlike with Neverland, efficiency won't be the main focus for TooMuchEnergy, so I'll mainly do whatever I feel like doing.
I started TooMuchEnergy yesterday evening at 9 pm. Of course I forgot to take a screenshot of that first moment, as I was too eager to start out .
Let me tell you ... I enjoyed those first two hours so much !! But really everything about it. Starting out fresh is always exciting, because every drop matters, and can be an improvement. But often this is a bit negated by the fact that early going is tough. Especially for casters, if they only get their main skills at later levels, or because they are struggling with mana. This wasn't the case for TooMuchEnergy. Well, to be more precise, I had to be somewhat careful with mana initially, and there was quite some whacking with the staff involved early on. But it wasn't too bad really. I got some items with +mana quite fast, got a 3os body armor and 3 chipped sapphires early on, with 2 more and a flawed one in early act 2, which helped a lot. I never expected I'd do so at all on any character, but I also invested some points in Energy already, figuring that I'd do so at some point anyway as ES Sorc, so I might as well do it early on to have some more mana.
And CB ... it's a killer right from the start. I have played a CB Sorc before, but I had forgotten just how strong and how much fun the skill is. Not only because it's powerful, but also because it's visually very pleasing to send all those sparks out.
I mainly played on /p1 and /p3. Did some reruns of bosses / areas, but not much. Three Countess runs only netted me 2x Tir and a Nef, so no Stealth or Zephyr yet. I'm currently still wielding a Staff (+1 CB/+1Static), but if I find somewhat of a good orb or some more Tir runes, I'll probably switch to a weapon shield setup, focused on those Tir runes, so I have plenty of MPK to even further negate any mana problems.
No really good drops so far, but like I said, upgrades are always around the corner. One S/U: Arctic belt. Definitely not the worst item to find.
Here's two pics of TooMuchEnergy in action:
As you can see, I had to use some pots, but other than that the fight was really easy: Static x4, few times CB, dead .
Too late to get Radament in the screen, but I figured I'd take one anyway .
This is where I stopped for the evening. Two hours in, level 17, Radament killed.
Kind of an odd update on Lucid, who's at 96.5. He was a bit further, but unfortunately he suffered his first death in more than 20 levels since leaving LK:
Plenty of time to react, I just didn't. I had planned to stash a corpse recovery kit once starting to include De Seis, so I didn't have one yet and without it I wasn't able to get through to recover the body. Good news is he gained XP faster than I had estimated and is still on track to just about hit 97 with his second RFL set.
I've been keeping track of his caster amulet crafts: So far he is at 178 and still no +2 Paldin, 10 FCR one. However, gambling amulets for just a few crafts in between runs netted this one, his best option at this point:
I decided to ditch Rising Sun for this, swapped in a second FCR ring and now use Hellmouth for Fire Absorb. Not as good as Rising Sun because he's no longer immune under Conviction, but otherwise he is and runs are comfortable overall. I welcome the extra damage since I'm still at only one skiller and no + skill rings. Speaking of FCR Pally stuff, this one was a cool find as well:
For now I'm still using Shako but I could see this getting use at some point (if not on him, at the very least on a twinked Pally). Other drops since 95, excluding runes during RFL of course:
This one I found cute and decided to upgrade it:
Still looking for skillers and ring upgrades. Also Merc is still using non-eth Insight with Duriel's. After 97 I might look for Polearm racks and maybe spend a few hours in LK if RFL doesn't deliver for his CoH...
I've been avoiding this thread for a while now, probably because I hadn't played my 99er for like a month
So I got back to it on Thursday and made a bit of progress. (Don't forget: 0 is a bit too )
***
predatory_wasp ran through the jungle, got the LK WP (and that's it for act 3 WPs ) and made it to the RoF WP. I gained a level in the progress and killed the smartest monster in the game:
and the rune?
Already one down before I even had a chance to do a single LK run!
***
I started LK runs yesterday evening and rolled a sweet starter map for her:
Sorry for the picture for ants
The runs are going fine so far but they feel a little slow even with Stealth + Sander's Boots combo. Sometimes monsters bother me a bit and I give up chests when they would get me trapped in a hut. I ditched the merc today as his only contribution to the runs is providing a passive chance for me to pay 50k gold.
Now I'll have to grind it out: Enigma, Infinity, HotO and CtA
***
So ... because apparently I'm stupid and don't learn from my mistakes I started a second UT 99er and he needs even more runes, yay!
I wanted to use the most powerful spell in the entire game again and so after getting Mal with predatory_wasp I made snow_dog, a necro. Thinking nothing of it I chose the summon route and played my way through normal all the way up to Diablo...
If you hadn't known: Diablo is a massive douchebag.
Two fire novas and all my skeletons were dead. I had a point in summon resist and I tried to pacify him with the clay golem and decrepify but to no avail. Nightfish lied, these are not enough to deal with normal Diablo
What followed were the most painful 30 minutes of my life in which I resurrected my mercenary about 20-30 times. Each time he would hack at Diablo for about 10 seconds - while I recast Clay Golem and Decrepify - before he would die to the lightning hose.
The only reason he did any damage at all was this:
Dimoak's Hew, the literal drop of the century.
Diablo finally gave up and dropped nothing of note
***
snow_dog was quite lucky with his rune drops so far, here's his three Sol Runes he got for free:
So without any dedicated NM countess runs he had Lore, Insight and a chance at an exceptional Insight.
***
Really not a lot to say about him past Diablo, I maxed RS and then I put points into SM and CE concurrently. I also invested a point in attract and now I can run across a map and cast attract in the middle to collect monsters for that big payoff
Mephisto dropped a real gem...
...followed by an NM HF that just screams 'Wealth'
And because that wouldn't be enough I hit the jackpot in the CS:
After all that Diablo was a joke and I ran through act 5 uncontested. Last thing I did with him was level to 65 in the Halls of Anguish/Pain gathering all that sweet flayer XP
I'm already looking forward to getting the runes for: Enigma, Infinity, Beast and CtA
Wow @ffs and @art_vandelay, so much impressive progress!
@art_vandelay for the sin running LK, shop a teleport staff and use it to get out of danger when you run into a chest hut and get followed in by monsters. Also, a few quick mind blasts can create time to escape. Last thing, make a harmony bow, it’s definitely worth it.
Well, I did it. I found the worst damn Ravenfrost this side of the mississippi
I'm wondering if I should keep running Andariel or not...I feel like because this one was so bad the next has to roll 250/20, right?
edit: Just checked the drop calculator, and Jalal's best chance to drop is from Andariel! Might as well keep it going until then. Who knows, I might find Highlords.
Also, in case you were wondering, yes that is Gull. And yes I did find it from Hell Andariel. And yes, that's a 1:4000 chance
Great to see the continued progress, and really nice work by @ffs to level the hammerdin and @art_vandelay with the second entrant. And it’s great to see @T72on1 with another entrant. Looking forward to TooMuchEnergy’s progress.
* * *
Matriarch Quinta and Kasim the Might Desert Merc, Lvl 97 (pic) Quinta made it to 97 The speed is nice and it’s plenty safe, but the lack of drops are the tradeoff. The only real danger came from teleporting through WSK2 to the stairs, one convicted gloam pack forced a quick S&E, but otherwise only two S&Es due to landing in pack with mana burn.
Before starting into this half of the level, she reshuffled gear, with a goal of higher MF. War Travelers replaced Aldur’s, with the Ruby GC of Sustenance returning to the backpack in place of some vita SCs. IN all, her vita barely dropped, and she netted out about the same on resists.
But, as noted drops were pretty minimal, so the extra MF didn’t help But this was nice:
That’s two stashed for her, so an option of cubing to Cham, I guess. The only other drop meriting a screen shot for the last half level was +2 skill Arkaine’s from Baal. Other nice finds were these two rings (one from gambling, one from Baal):
Code:
Rune Band
Ring
Required Level: 74
Fingerprint: 0x59589bd6
Item Level: 99
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+58 to Attack Rating
6% Mana stolen per hit
+13 to Energy
Lightning Resist +29%
Fire Resist +9%
Poison Length Reduced by 25%
Grim Gyre
Ring
Required Level: 74
Fingerprint: 0x9ca771f3
Item Level: 99
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+18 to Attack Rating
6% Mana stolen per hit
7% Life stolen per hit
Cold Resist +15%
10% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
The first actually replaced her other ML ring, due to higher LR allowing removal of two SCs to keep that maxed and replace with MF charm and another ruby SC. The other notable finds were Halaberd’s and another Azurewrath. I recorded a vid of two runs toward the end to show the approach:
I think she will roll a 2-3 shrine CS map and give that a shot for 97-98. If it also has a decent Baal map, that would be great so she can mix things up. She actually needs an Ist for delirium when she transitions to Nihl at 98, so hopefully that drops along the way. A long way to go, so plenty of time.
Pestilence continues his RFL Rd 3 set, not quite 16 hours in, and should be past 98.25 when he finishes. I'm hoping to get him to 98.3 by the end of next weekend, and will update then.
At least an update, finaly reached 86 and Lady luck helped me with some items for further builds.
Doing alot of Pindle-runs to reach my levels, i think my goal for pindle is the glory level of 90!
Bul-Kathos' Sacred Charge
Colossus Blade
One-Hand Damage: 75 to 195
Two-Hand Damage: 174 to 345
Durability: 36 of 50
Required Dexterity: 110
Required Strength: 189
Required Level: 63
Sword Class - Fast Attack Speed
Unidentified
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x487d1f7
+200% Enhanced Damage
All Resistances +20
Knockback
20% Increased Attack Speed
35% Chance of Crushing Blow
The Reaper's Toll
Thresher
Two-Hand Damage: 39 to 465
Durability: 50 of 65
Required Dexterity: 89
Required Strength: 114
Required Level: 75
Polearm Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0xf8f6d598
+230% Enhanced Damage
Adds 4-44 cold damage over 1 seconds
13% Life stolen per hit
Requirements -25%
Ignore Target Defense
33% Deadly Strike
33% Chance to cast Level 1 Decrepify on striking
Ondal's Almighty
Spired Helm
Defense: 208
Durability: 35 of 40
Required Strength: 115
Required Level: 69
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x11313039
+10 to Strength
+15 to Dexterity
+50 Defense
Requirements -40%
24% Faster Hit Recovery
10% Chance to cast Level 3 Weaken on striking
Bonehew
Ogre Axe
'AmnAmn'
Two-Hand Damage: 110 to 572
Durability: 28 of 50
Required Dexterity: 75
Required Strength: 195
Required Level: 64
Polearm Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xe146487e
+295% Enhanced Damage
14% Life stolen per hit
30% Increased Attack Speed
Prevent Monster Heal
50% Chance to cast Level 16 Bone Spear on striking
Level 14 Corpse Explosion (17/30 Charges)
Socketed (2: 2 used) <- i used this until the tresher dropped!
Inventory: 2x PCombat skiller, 1x OA skiller, Gheed's, various life/res SCs
Minor spoiler: He did not get the particular rune drop he was hoping for from RFL (Ber for Merc's CoH). But I needed to power up the Merc so I decided to go for the tested and trusted Andy + ebug Fortitude setup. Used his second socket quest for a 10/26 Andy's (punching in a cold dmg/29 FR jewel in it for now), Hel'ed out the Stone and made this in a 1117 defense base:
I also stashed a corpse recovery kit now consisting of Shako, Spirit, Viper, Rising Sun, stat/res rings and Hoto... of which I made a second one that got a sexy 40@ (and is eth of course ).
Apart from the fact that no Ber dropped, rune drop quality was actually quite good – but that will have to wait for a couple of days until RFL is over. Best non-rune drops from the last stretch to 97 included a 38% ED RJoF, an Offensive Aura skiller (which is in use) and a 14/30 Shimmering GC of Sustenance. Screenshots:
With drops out of the way, I was curious as to how different run types compare regarding XP gain. In short, I confirmed what @PhineasB had concluded for his runs with Phaedrus. I tested rather short samples but tried to keep an eye on a similar distribution of XP shrines, with these results:
So indeed P8/P7 beats out Gripphon runs, and switching the player settings – while annoying – is probably worth the hassle over straight P7 or straight P8 runs.
Generally by now I think Hammerdin could be the fastest untwinked 99 option overall, sub 250h should be possible without much difficulty for Lucid. Sorc going Blizzard @ CS into Lightning @ Nihl may be faster in theory, but her performance depends much more on gear. Hammerdin needs only runewords and basic S&Us (nothing like Griffon's/Fathom) to get pretty close to his twinked counterparts, not even skillers are really required since they don't increase damage as much as for other builds... Overall pretty shocked to see how easy he is to level to be honest.
@ffs are you keeping track of total time closely? I considered doing another sorc with the only goal of hitting 99 as quickly as possible but I’m hesitant to start it now because of lack of free time for the next few months.
I think I mentioned this a while back but you could potentially save some time by starting in classic and switching ASAP in Hell to save NM Ancients for the bitter end. I haven’t really played classic in a speedrun sense (or much at all) so I’d have to practice that segment first for sure. I also think sorc has the most potential to do it the quickest but what you said about item dependency is kinda true. The good thing is you don’t really need Infinity until 98 and with 2 seal CS runs being so good it’s very unlikely you don’t find/cube up 2x Ber before the end of that segment.
@Yng I tried to keep an eye on how much time I spent for the different segments, though it's not 100% precise given there's no run counter (that I know of) that works natively on Mac without freezing. Times according to my notes and estimates going forward:
~8h to Hell LK (aided by great quest drops such as Wizzy/Bloodfist and good map layouts)
~26-28h farming LK (Enigma)
~14-18h farming Mephisto and sometimes Pit (Shako + Arach took forever)
~45h CS 2 Seal runs until 97
Estimates going forward:
~40h for 97-98
~80h for 98-99 (based on 3.5h @ Nihl, Hell Ancients saved)
That would be sub 220h – assuming peak efficiency and no deaths, so that's unlikely... But he should end up sub 250 for sure unless I screw up big time.
BTW: Apart from Smiter, after a few test runs I found Hammerdin without Merc is also a decent option for Nihl. In fact more or less same run times and thus in theory better XP due to AoE. Might stick to that build after all.
What made me think Paladin could be better than Sorc (for untwinked 99 specifically) was how Lucid's numbers compared to @Gripphon's initial tests regarding the 2 seal approach. Based on his tests with crazy good gear on both classes, Paladin was roughly 10% behind Sorc numbers. (That was a Sorc with perfect DFathom and NWV, 1.07 Ark, 1.10a BKWB, 8x skillers.) His Pally at 96-97 stage was at ~14.5h to level up. Lucid wasn't too far behind that at ~17h with much more basic gear, thanks to most Hammerdin DPS output coming from build/hard points, basic S&Us and runewords. For Blizzy things like Fathom and skillers add much more damage than a couple of skillers do for Hammerdin, so I'd assume there's a bigger discrepancy for twinked vs. untwinked Blizzy runs than in case of Hammerdin.
Second thing is that by now several people have tested full CS runs to outperform 2 Seal runs at the 97-98 stage, and the difference is bigger than the advantage of Blizzy for 2 Seal runs. So while Blizzy (with great gear) has best XP gain from 2 Seal runs, for 97-98 that's likely not the case because she can't clear P8/P7 CS + Diablo as quickly as Hammerdin. Then again she is faster for 98-99...
In the end it probably just depends on drops which is better when trying to go for fastest untwinked 99. If Paladin farms Enigma quickly, he should be faster than a Sorc that doesn't find stuff like Fathom or at least several skillers early on. However, a Sorc that does find those things would surely be faster than a Paladin who is unlucky and spends way above average time in LK for Enigma... As for which is the most realistic scenario – no idea.
Good point about non-LoD classes saving NM Ancients by converting to LoD in Hell. It has been done on the SPF but I don't know if it is allowed here. I've been wondering the same. @Kitteh can you clarify?
@ffs amazing stuff man. I almost exclusively play devi, my untwinked 99er trapper and she’s at 94.5 since feb 1. I’ve been doing p5 or p7 pits runs for round 3. It’s crazy how much exp you’ve gotten from CS. I wonder if I should switch to CS. Thoughts?
Right, for exp, but I guess I was asking about round 3 for exp and runes. Maybe visier runs? Fireblast is pretty slick for taking them down. Teleport speed is bleh.
I would think Pits maybe, focusing on the 2 Fallen nests? Never really played a trapper in a tournament, and it's been a while since I played one at all, but I think that would be your best option.
I think Nanomist tried CS with his trapper, but indeed his conclusion was it wasn't worthwhile when it comes to xp compared to Baal runs.
I would think Pits maybe, focusing on the 2 Fallen nests? Never really played a trapper in a tournament, and it's been a while since I played one at all, but I think that would be your best option.
I think Nanomist tried CS with his trapper, but indeed his conclusion was it wasn't worthwhile when it comes to xp compared to Baal runs.
Right, that was the conclusion I came to as well. I’ve been running p5 and p7 pits. It’s just that ffs’ experience gain at CS has been pretty mind blowing so that’s why I was curious if there’s another location with decent rune drops but better exp.
Indeed what @T72on1 said could be an idea. Last year's RFL before switching to AS, I ran some Javazon in Pit focusing on Fallen camp/nest areas. If you get a map that also spawns boss packs in those, that should make for a decent mix of XP and runes. Vizier seal runs shouldn't be too bad either as you said.
In the end it just depends on maps, gear, number of kills, run times etc. – no way around testing things for yourself if you want to know for sure.
Since I got carried away a bit too much, TooMuchEnergy has made quite some progress .
The rest of Act 2 and Act 3 were very easy, and went by unnoticed. TooMuchEnergy did suffer her first death, due to me not really paying attention and some serious misclicking. She is very fragile though, so at that point I already knew that more deaths would follow, at least until ES would be at full strength. This would turn out to be true, as 3 more deaths would occur over the course of Normal, Nightmare and early Hell.
RoF and CS turned out to be quite hard. Not so much for TooMuchEnergy, but for the merc, who is even more fragile than the Sorc. So I had to constantly use a tactic of spamming CB, Teleport a bit back, rinse and repeat. This meant I had to make quite some town trips, to stock up on potions, and sometimes to revive my merc.
I made it through without any deaths though, and killed Diablo at level 25. Far lower than I'm used to, but Eldritch was the first main goal, so I played on /p1 or /p3 for most of the time.
In Act 5 I finally made my first Stealth armor. Once I got to Eldritch, leveling went really well. First on /p3, but after I got to level 30 I could play on /p7 due to the boost by LM and a +1 Sorc skills Orb I got. Next to that I also found some nice rare items, like the helm below, so things were shaping up nicely.
When I hit level 35 I moved on, leveled some more on Pindle when I reached him, then finished Normal at level 41.
At that point I had played TooMuchEnergy for exactly 6.5 hours. For my standards, in an untwinked setting, that's a very fast playthrough of Normal .
Early NM consisted of the usual search for Spirit and Insight Bases. Spirit didn't take too long, and was made in a cube socketed Long Sword:
The low fcr wasn't an issue at that point, the perfect mana roll more than welcome . Later on I would also make a second Spirit, this time in a Crystal Sword, which got 33% fcr.
The Insight didn't take much longer. I was about to cube socket an eth Superior Voulge, when a 4os Bill dropped. Perfect !!
Not the best roll out there, especially on the Meditation aura, but it would have to do for that moment. Any Insight is fine at that point !!
Around that time I also found Magefists, which brought me at the 63% fcr. As you can tell from the screenshot, I had been doing some Countess runs to get some much needed runes. After that it was pretty much non stop progress through the rest of Nightmare, often skipping entire parts by teleporting through.
No real drops of note anymore, until I reached the Forge. I definitely got a good drop there:
Nice. More than I found in 10 hours of RFL 3 .
I leveled up on Eldritch and a bit of Pindle. At level 70 I proceeded to Hell, after 10 hours. Again, that's fast for my untwinked standards.
So far Hell has been ... entertaining. Killing speed still is good on /p1, but TooMuchEnergy remains fragile, and her Merc, even though I switched to a Holy Freeze one, even more so. So I have been mostly been using hit and run tactics, although I can easily stand my ground against weaker enemies. This makes clearing out fallen camps my favourite activity with TooMuchEnergy in Hell .
I have grabbed the Outer Cloister waypoint and I'm now doing Countess runs, hoping for some good runes. No luck yet, with a Fal as only decent mid quality rune. I'm mainly looking for a Lum rune and a 4os Staff for Memory on switch, and then another one for Lionheart or Smoke, to up my resists. A Lem, so I can make Treachery for my merc, would also be nice.
Gearwise I'm using the usual suspects Spirit/Rhyme, Lore and Stealth. Rest consists of rares, except for the Magefists.
I'm not sure how I'll proceed. Probably some more Countess runs, then quest further through the game. Initially the plan was to stop at AS to level and hope for good runes, but seeing how I already struggle in early Act 1, I probably won't be able to run that area properly. So I might (I never thought I'd say this) proceed to LK right away and start hitting those chests.
As far as skills go, I have maxed CB, Lightning and LM. Currently I have been alternating points between Telekinesis and ES. After those are maxed, I'll put remaining points into Warmth. I hope that ES will start to work better when I get both ES and Telekinesis maxed out, and I get more +skills. For now even a few hits from normal monsters drain my mana too much to my liking.
I'll try to add a screenshot of the screen filled with Charged Bolts next time. Like I said in my previous post, it's just so visually pleasing !!!
Nice going @T72on1! I'm also being carried away a bit with Lucid. I meant to post another update after RFL is over, but figured it's warranted given good drops and good XP progress, moving to 97.3. The Merc setup is living up to expectations, though this drop after RFL made me briefly think about CoH again:
Almost missed this one – only saw it when going back form A1 to grab an XP shrine before killing Diablo. One of those "I wonder how often I missed drops like this" moments.
For now I'm happy with the Andy + Forti Merc, and I'm not sure whether Ber'ed Shako is worth it at this point (given I will likely run Nihl for 98-99 and might want to socket Shako with Sol then).
So I'm thinking best use is eventually making a backup Enigma as part of his corpse recovery kit.
No SoJ/BKWB in sight and crafting amulets still didn't provide a 2/10 (now at 210 amulets crafted), but I keep at it. In the meantime I tried to craft an FCR/life/FR ring and actually succeeded, albeit with low rolls:
Other drops and crafts included a 2/20 Necro circlet with useful adds (plus another 2/20 P&B one), Metalgrid #3 and a pretty cool Barb 2 WC/9 FCR/25 MF amulet:
(All runes are post-RFL)
Further drops of note:
15 life, 11 FR SC
7 MF, 10 LR SC
TO Cantor Trophy
Wraith Flight
Halaberd's Reign
2/20 FCR P&B/ circlet
Death gloves
15 %DR Verdungo's
Eye of Etlich
M'avina's Caster
3x Pul
Since it's been a while since I recorded some gameplay, here's a couple of P8/P7 CS/Diablo runs:
Only two XP shrines in this batch of runs with ~6.5m XP/h. So far I still really enjoy CS runs and they're quite comfortable with >3800 life and 75@ (80 FR). I dropped to ~210 MF for now but maybe I'll include some more if I don't encounter any dangerous situations for a long time.
So, now let's get SoJ/BKWB. In fact I might go for a few Andariel runs at some point since he hasn't found Nature's Peace yet either (which would be handy if running Nihl for 98-99).
@Pb_pal Yeah that Diablo screenshot is really neat.
@ffs 3800 hitpoints? My fully twinked Hammerdin is at 3100. I'll have to compare gear to see what causes the difference. Although 3100 feels safe most of the time. Surely paired with max block and 95% Fire Res.
Well I only have few skillers (2x Combat, 1x OA) plus Gheed's, so that leaves a lot of room for life SCs. I'd assume yours probably uses more skillers. Getting +6 BO on second CtA roll helped of course.
Waterwalk add quite a bit as well (up to 65 life plus 15 Dex = 15 Vit = 45 life before BO). They also get me to 80 max FR, which is convenient but IMO it's not really that important either. The way I think about it is that fire damage from Infector is not dangerous at all unless he rolls Conviction, and if he does that brings me below 75 anyway so max FR doesn't help all that much...
Sweet map and even better playing @ffs I like the approach to taking out de Seis, the extra hit points help for sure, but you do a really nice job of allowing his pack to come toward the pally to make telestomping safe. And amazing progress on the XP front
Heh, yeah I found that's the best way to approach De Seis. Simply too dangerous to teleport right in there no matter how tanky, and let alone for Merc. It can still get hairy though when he spawns around my usually safe landing spot after popping his seal, but that only happened 2-3 times so far. His minions walking through hammers back and forth moreover means most of them drop and provide XP (whereas normally hammers are prone to miss those knights with their small hitboxes in comparison to other monster types in CS).
I use a similar approach for all three seals most of the times: teleport, spam some hammers, reposition by teleporting onze, spam more hammers. Makes me miss far less enemies and usually they die faster too .
I'm just going to put it out there now; a CS hammerdin is by far the most relaxed, simple and reliable endgame runners that I've used, especially if you're going for 99.
Sometimes you just get lucky. I guess that's what happens when the drop gods don't treat you well during a tournament .
Things started out really well for TooMuchEnergy, who went on to do Countess runs, when a white Monarch dropped in one of the first runs, and that very Monarch, only her second one, got 4os in the Cube.
Big chance obviously, as that allowed her to get to the 105% fcr breakpoint. I had to use a respec to get her to 156 strength, but that shouldn't be too much of a big deal.
Not much later I first got this one from the Countess:
and then this one on my way to her:
Later another RFL qualifier would be added:
This brings TooMuchEnergy to more qualifiers than I got in the 12 hours spent on RFL3. So yeah . But hey, I don't mind TooMuchEnergy making up for some lesser luck in the tournament.
It didn't stop there though. I decided to push on, so I teleported through Act 1, killed Andariel, and did the same in Act 2. Arriving in AS, I had a drop I had definitely hoped for, but to get this so soon, without any mf runs at all ...
Terrible 21/10 roll, but even then it's such a great drop to get, untwinked, at this stage already.
AS went well, but not good enough to do some dedicated running, so I only did a few runs before proceeding to Duriel, who had a bit of a funny drop ...
Act 3 was uneventful, just picking up the parts to assemble the flail, get the flail itself and proceed to Mephisto. I didn't even kill all the council members, as my merc still dies when monsters come a bit too close. Meph actually wasn't too hard luckily enough.
Btw, I had my first elite unique drop in Travincal:
Not useful for her, but always nice to get nonetheless.
Act 4 was easy for the first part, as I found Izual right away and didn't get any Gloams. Forge only was a Ko rune, luck couldn't keep lasting . CS was hard, or better, slow, because I had to use hit and run tactics all the time to keep the merc alive. I also had to do it twice, because for some stupid reason I hit esc just before taking on the last seal, and clicked on S&E.
In Act 5 I only went to Eldritch so far. Ran him a few times, but he isn't worth it for now. /p1 goes easy, but doesn't give much xp. /p3 is possible for my Sorc, but again my merc dies too easily.
So after some more Countess runs, in which I got 2 Lum runes and a Lem, and also got to level 79, I'll be rerolling maps and start doing LK runs for a while. I also hope to find a base for Treachery for my merc and one for Memory for myself on switch. This might not be needed if that Ohm drops fast enough, although of course I forgot to pick up any CtA bases ...
TooMuchEnergy died two more times. She still feels fragile, although it's better now that I have more points into ES and TK, as well as a bigger mana pool and more +skills. So I have good hopes that I won't die much anymore now.
Lucid got a little more XP and is now at 97.5 and 3.1B:
You know rune drops are good if you resort to haul pics for a 97.3 to 97.5 update:
Plus a few more in the Pul-Mal range. I was hoping to include a haul with RFL drops, which haven't too shabby either... but @Grape is too slow so it will have to wait a bit longer!
This 97.3 to 97.5 stretch was big overall, with very cool S&U drops including Metalgrid #4 (!), eth Titan's #2 (!), two +3 skill/2os Heaven's Light and my first ever eth Andy's. He also got a Nature's Peace, just in time to make Nihl runs possible for 98-99, and made a second Enigma for his corpse recovery kit with the Ber from the last update.
Still no amulet craft upgrade (now at #235) nor skillers or + skill ring, but that's fine. Pretty happy with his current setup, very safe and fast. Busy weekend but at his pace I should still find some time to hit 98 within a couple of weeks. In my mind I'm already preparing to compare Hammerdin vs. Smiter setups for Nihl.
Right off the bat he found a LoH and this nice little ring:
both of which were of course immediately equipped. I'm hoping to find lots of his end-game mid-tier S/U along the way rather than farming them specifically, so it's a very appreciated find. He then found an Um (nice!), and another couple levels later right after he hit 83, his 2nd Um rune dropped.
Cubing time!
6 Ko made the 2 Fals we needed to add to our previously found one one and make a 3rd Lem. 3 Lems and the 2 Ums made a Pul and Mal, leaving Stevesy ultimately with:
The base is nowhere near ideal (neither is his first one!), but that doesn't matter as these are just temporary weapons anyways. Stevesy's rune stores are completely depleted, so it's time for some questing!
Killing actually went smoothly now (relatively to before anyways), so Radament, Coldworm, and Fangskin all dropped easily before Stevesy offed Duriel and took on the jungles. Sszark soon fell and before he knew it, Stevesy had killed Stormtree and cleared all the way to the Trav WP. Sadly, trav is not runnable right now as both Stevesy and merc are way too squishy, even on /p1. Bit of a shame since he's going LK-less, so Trav is his go-to spot (hopefully) for HRs.
He's going to break there for now, and come up with a game plan in the meantime. Most likely he'll level a bit in the Pits while looking for some items/bases for his future self.
@ffs @T72on1 and @Pb_pal - Wow, great progress! But @Pb_pal how is Klaus doing?
Quick update on my end for Pestilence, post-RFL Rd 3. Minimal drops and belly-aching about the same is summarized here, but he is a little past 98.33 and pretty safe along the way. The closest he got to danger was ~900 HP at end of a run, with closest S&E still having nearly half his HPs.
The progress on improved S&E times has been nice, to say the least, but the long-term result hasn't been quite as good as that initial experience, likely landing closer to ~3 second average. But that's still a major improvement
The other major observation is that map @ffs had for Ric is really, really good. I've now worked through >50 maps with 10+ runs, and I haven't found one that was as clean "past the platform" as that map, shown over the vids posted in Ric's 99er write-up (which again, major thanks for those). I think that makes a pretty big difference for necros, as having only one spot with frequent spawns (as that map), would allow much more streamlined runs. I've not found one like that, with current one having one spawn regularly but two or more also regularly, and this one lacking any shrines on-route.
I've still found a comfortable routine, with S&Es due to spawns rare even with vipers in 2+ spots due to confuse. I plan to record some vids on current map to show approach, but I'm still thinking of rolling maps again to try to find an improvement. Now that I have approach to curses down, I think it may be worth looking for improved map . . .
* * *
Interestingly, Quinta and Death did well on the rune front with more limited runs, but I'll hold off on their updates until they hit key milestones (97.25 for Quinta and 95 for Death). Keep up the great progress everyone!
Another necro checking in. I've been hitting the pits for the last few levels, still waiting for that arachnid's drop. Now 93 and the exp seems to be slowing down so maybe one more level here. Then I'll have to think about a plan; I'd love to save ancients but can't see a way to get much higher without switching to Baal runs. Nihlathak not really an option on yolo mode.
Rerolled my sorc's tunnels map this weekend and think I finally have a very good one (still poor runtimes though ) and did 120 runs. I found nothing the whole time till 2 runs before the end last night, when the chest delivered:
Also found a vex with her during RFL round 3, so I could make a hoto and a CTA for body recovery (or at least I'll be able to if I find mal and ist), but I hate to use the runes on something so mundane
After that I did 2 pindle runs just because I wanted a full rejuv to top of my belt before logging off. He gave me the full rejuv... and a little something else:
Approx. 1 in 71k odds Now she just needs some skillers, as well as better merc gear.
@PhineasB - Klaus is alive and well! He took a break for the RFL, but has been running again since I finished my set. Expect an official update for him in the next couple weeks, most likely. I'm trying this thing where I only play him when I actually feel like it, to hopefully avoid a deeds while 'forcing' things (as most of my deaths during running for XP come).
Nice progress people !! So I'll add my own for TooMuchEnergy.
Last update I said that my next stop would be LK. That wasn't completely correct. I did start rerolling maps, but because I didn't get a good map right away, I couldn't resist trying out something else first. Which ended up being p1 Pit runs. I had quite a good map there, with 2 Fallen camps and quite steady boss spawn locations. So despite rather slow run times it didn't take too much time to level to 80.
At that point I decided to turn to rolling LK maps again, but not before I had rescued Anya, to increase my resists somewhat. In the meantime I also made a Memory staff. No +ES on the staff itself though, never found one of those except for a Superior one.
As you can see in the pic, TooMuchEnergy isn't using your typical helm. Because I almost had no mf on her (23% from boots) I decided to check the gear I had found. Turns out that Tancred's amulet has a 78% mf 2 piece set bonus, and I happened to have the helm as well. Btw, I found out that quite a lot of those low level set items have mf on them as 2 piece set bonus. Never knew that.
After some 15 minutes of map rolling I finally got a good 2 campfire map. Ever since TooMuchEnergy has been hitting LK, some 250 runs in total. Average pace is 36 seconds, id'ing, cubing up gems and rerolling GCs included.
TooMuchEnergy's luck definitely continued in LK. In the first 200 runs, 201 to be precise, she found a Mal at run 63 (no screenshot), another one at run 178:
Ohm at run 193:
and Gul at run 201:
I have the base for CtA, but unfortunately I am an Ist short to be able to make CtA. Any of Um, Mal or Ist allows me to make it though, so it shouldn't take too long.
The second Gul (I got one from my Countess runs earlier) did allow me to cube up to Vex and make HotO. It's only afterwards that I realized I should or at least could have waited, because the HotO won't be used in LK anyway. But I won't really need Gul anyway for the runewords I want to make (Fortitude, Infinity, maybe CoH), so it's not too bad.
Slightly below average roll, but still happy that I can make this so early. It should serve me very well.
Next to the runes, I also was lucky enough to get a weapon rack which dropped Treshers on occasion. Got a 4os almost immediately, which was a good upgrade for the merc. The first eth one to drop got 5os in the cube, but the next plain eth one got 4os. So now my merc is the proud owner of a big hurty stick:
Low Meditation roll, but good to very good damage rolls. It will do for now .
Next to that not much of note, except these boots, which are quite nice:
Three skillers so far, 2x Druid and 1x Necro.
When I'm able to make CtA, I'll probably try out Eldritch and/or Pits again, to see if I can level there some more. Maybe AS too. And obviously secretly hope for good runes to drop. Although I'm actually enjoying the LK runs so far.
Yeah some of those low sets have really nice MF bonuses. During my last restart my sorc used Tancred's amu+helm socketed with a ptopaz until she found shako in her late 80s. Tarnhelm just couldn't compete.
Vidala's amu+boots is another favorite combo of mine because it has a lot of good mods: 40% frw, resists, life, 50% MF, and I seem to have really good luck finding these whenever I restart. Even the character I made to mess around on b.net found these early on.
Great progress @PhineasB, @1have2much3time, @T72on1 and everyone really! Very nice to see so much activity here. @Pb_pal no pressure with Klaus, not deeding him takes precedence.. but we do want to see him hit 99 one day!
PhineasB said:
The other major observation is that map @ffs had for Ric is really, really good. I've now worked through >50 maps with 10+ runs, and I haven't found one that was as clean "past the platform" as that map, shown over the vids posted in Ric's 99er write-up (which again, major thanks for those). I think that makes a pretty big difference for necros, as having only one spot with frequent spawns (as that map), would allow much more streamlined runs. I've not found one like that, with current one having one spawn regularly but two or more also regularly, and this one lacking any shrines on-route.
I've still found a comfortable routine, with S&Es due to spawns rare even with vipers in 2+ spots due to confuse. I plan to record some vids on current map to show approach, but I'm still thinking of rolling maps again to try to find an improvement. Now that I have approach to curses down, I think it may be worth looking for improved map . . .
I think you're right. I had noticed that Ric's map was comfortable because he barely ever had to move after landing. It didn't take long to roll the map and I didn't think much about it back then. But I remember my Sorc's map was on average much more populated "past the platform" – with her I didn't mind because Nihl dropped immediately, but indeed with Necro that map would have been much more hectic to run.
As for me, Lucid is taking a small break. Busy RL at the moment, and not quite the PC gaming weather. But we'll try to hit 98 within a couple of weeks.
Also, with all the activity in this thread and some characters in their high nineties, don't forget to add yourself to the table in this thread as well, for even more motivation .
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