So, I am starting NM. I have had good and bad luck with S/U drops in normal difficulty. Bad luck is that I only found 23 of them. None from Baal and none from the cows. Good luck is that I found the Angelic set (all four of them) and I did not find a second helm. Not findilng that helm meant that I can retain the magic find of the two topazes in my helm (perfect and flawless).
First drop in Nighmare:
Undead Crown - Defense: 110 Required Strength: 55 +53% Enhanced Defense +40 Defense Poison Resist +50%
5% Life stolen per hit +3 to Skeleton Mastery Half Freeze Duration 50% Damage to Undead +91 A. R. against Undead
Again, good and bad luck.
Bad luck is two-fold: First, I will lose that MF (in 7 levelings!), second, those 3 skill points in skeleton mastery will compel me to change my build and decide to use skeletons or skeleton mages. That may be OK because the golem and bone spear are just about maxed out anyway. I could work on the synergies though.
Good luck is that the crown requires level 55 and HotBones is only 48. I have time to decide just what to do. Which means, any help that you have would be appreciated. I do like working with a flock of minions, but they seem to dissolve against act bosses and corpses are seldom available when you need them. I just hate wasting those three skill points in Skeleton Mastery.
EDIT: This is definitely different from Normal Difficulty! Second find was Steelgoad in the Bood Moor. No big deal. Third find (from Corpsefire) was Sigon's Wrap plated belt. Now I have all my items filled. Except the Undead Crown is still waiting for 7 more levelings! Oh, and I need 10 more strength to wear that belt. Charms solved that problem. That means that I have found three more SUs before geting out of the Blood Moor (At this rate .......).
Yes, I think it should be equip-able if you double check the stats @Wolron -- although I might hold off on committing to a build based on a normal item drop. You might find that Shako later, after all
* * *
As for me, Quinta has progressed to A3, with some decisions to be made.
She kept her MF set up all the way, with full-clearing A1 (except for two PI/LI bosses that I couldn’t tackle noted below). She continued that approach for the surface areas of A2 up to the Palace (skipping Stony Tomb and Halls of the Dead due to Unravellers). She then ran directly as possible and just took down Duriel.
A1
We picked back up at Cold Plains WP at p3. After saying I’d skip crypt and mausoleum due to PIs, I thought better of it, and dropped down to p1 after taking out Blood Raven.
It wasn’t too bad – there were 5 PI bosses and I was able to manage with Fleshrender. The A5 barb merc died almost immediately upon encountering a boss, so we relied on Fleshrender. One ended up being too dangerous (you can see Quinta trying to hide from the lightning bolts behind the Valk, but the pulse damage was too much with her negative resists and how long it would take). She picked up Cathan’s staff, another Naj’s circlet and another Sigon boot for her trouble, which was disappointing.
We continued after bumping back up to p3, rescuing Cain. I forgot to drop to p1 before Tristram, and Griswold ended up rolling PI and we weren’t able to take him down either. I know he would have dropped Titan’s. Snakecord and another Stromstrike dropped along the way.
At this point, I was fed up with the A5 merc dying every time we met a boss, so we swapped in an Cold Rogue with Riphook. She was quite the upgrade, the main benefit being not going aggro and running into LI bosses. She also was a major help with PI bosses, which continued to roll throughout but were sorted with Fleshrender and cold rogue and just relying on cold rogue when LI.
We dropped to p1 for the Tower. It was still a bit of a slog, with this nasty boss making things interesting. We were rewarded with an Ort from Countess. :\ We stayed at p1, and Tamoe gave us Lance of Yaggi, which seemed to finally decide her build (charged strike/lightning strike). But we had already committed to keep the MF set up through at least A1. We nearly died in Pit level 2 due to impatience with Shamans, but managed to get back to the stairs and reestablish a beachhead.
Sadly, nothing of use to her dropped on the journey to Andy (although the MF set up continued to pay dividends with Kinemel’s Awl, another Plague Bearer, Spectral Shard, Goblin Toe, and an eth Face of Horror). This pic shows her approach to the Andy fight, and the drop wasn’t useful for this playthrough but it’s nice nonetheless: View attachment 10431 View attachment 10432
A2
Given the relatively safe progress, I decided to stick with the MF set up, at least through the Palace. Radament dropped Razortine, which was up’ed as a better spear option. We continued to full clear, but skipped areas where Unravellers roll. She picked up the unique flail, Trang’s gloves, and Cathan’s mask on the way to the Viper Temple.
It rolled Unravellers, and they were the monster that got boss rolls, so it was a slog. This guy was a pain, as he was mixed in with four regular Unravellers (and LI so Quinta couldn’t wade in herself), with all the surrounding rooms having several also. It must have taken 20 minutes to lure out the skeletons and finally take him down: View attachment 10433
She got to the lower left corner of level 2 and threw a TP, which ended up being necessary as Fangskin rolled LI, stone skin, and had conviction. She came back from the WP and eventually took him down: View attachment 10434
Only drop for her trouble was an Artic bow. We then went as directly as possible to Arcane Sanctuary, and guessed right on the second try. She picked up a second Lem, so one short of a weapon upgrade.
I went straight for the tomb, but there were 3 bosses in the way, which turned out being productive, with Boneslayer and Impaler dropping. I think Impaler might beat out the up’ed Razortine (but I’ll seek advice below!).
The true tomb of course rolled Unravellers, lots of them. But Quinta finally found the Chamber. We went back to p3 for Duriel (hoping for max drops and figuring it wouldn’t be unsafe with Valk and Decoy). He provided some food for thought: View attachment 10435
* * *
I’d welcome suggestions on gear. She will put 30 remaining skills to CS and LS. My current thought is to go with the Impaler and swap Manald for Nagel, equip the Aldur’s boots, with Fleshrender and Milabrega’s Orb as the kill switch, with Angelic Sickle in the stash for boss fights MF.
As for merc, my thought is to go back to A2 might merc with the Pierre Tombale. If Quinta is wading in with CS/LS, a melee merc (and more damage to the Valk) seems in order. The combo of PI/LI will be a problem with loss of cold rogue, but we can just skip those. Still no source of life leech for the merc, so that’s my main hesitation. Quinta can always go back to the cold rogue (same difficulty), so I will probably keep Riphook in the stash just in case.
Quinta, the Level 79 Passivezon, and Divo, the Level 79 Cold Rogue; A3 H, Kurast Docks; Total S/Us=99, Equipped=16
OOPS! Yes, it does. I got the two requirements mixed up.
I found Isenhart's horns at the stony field, and I was still waiting for that Undead Crown. Now, I have to decide which to use.
Merc:
Head: Berserker's Head Gear
Body: Dark Glow
Weapon: The Impaler war spear
Other S/U items:
Angelic Mantle
Angelic Sickle
Cathan's Seal
Cathan's Seal
Cathan's Seal
Cathan's Seal
Civerb's Ward
Cleglaw's Tooth
Dimoak's Hew
Isenhart's Horns
Isenhart's Case
Isenhart's Case
Isenhart's Case
Isenhart's Parry
Mage Fist
Mage Fist
Milabrega's Orb
Razortine
Razortine
Sandar's RipRap
Silks of the Victor
Steelgoad
Swordback Hold
Tancred's Crowbar
The centurian
Undead Crown
Nice progress @Wolron -- it's good to see your next entry moving through so well!
* * *
Quinta’s progress continues, and she is now in Harrogath after vanquishing Diablo. It was smooth sailing, except for her first true NDE (there were actually multiple in that one place) from what I worried was the most likely source of deeds for her (more below). It turned out to be true, but not quite, thanks to big purples.
A3
Given the relatively smooth sailing in A2, we decided to push our luck with the MF set up, but dropping the 4 and 5 MF SCs for a couple plain sustenance SCs. It paid off!
We spec’ed to CS/LS. She started with The Impaler, as mentioned before, but Angelic Sickle stayed on switch. She also picked up Hazade in NM with the unique Partizan. Endlesshail dropped early in Spider Forest, and then an eth Twitchthroe, which went to the merc and subsequently was up’ed at the first save break.
We lucked out on the map, with the Spider Forest WP leading directly to Flayer Jungle at the Flayer Dungeon/Gibdin area. That’s the absolute best for direct play, and I was worried about the Marsh due to gloams (and still negative lightning resists). I really like not having to backtrack for the Dungeon and this allowed TP after finishing the dungeon to WP without any additional running to speak of.
Up to LK, she picked up another Berserker’s helm and Bonesnap (her third!). LK was full cleared, but disappointing with no charm upgrades and only a Dol and Sol. The Sewers led to another nice drop, with Rockfleece giving an option other than Angelic mail for body armor (it was also up’ed at conclusion of A3).
Nothing else of note dropped except Bladebone from a boss pack in Durance 3. The LI blunderbores in durance were slow, so I ended up switching in Durance 2 to up’ed Razortine, which had stayed in the stash, as an alternative. It ended up being faster (maybe due to faster attack and slow, which wouldn’t seem to make up for lower damage number, but it was noticeably faster so there you go ).
A4
We switched up some gear at the start of A4 due to higher HP- and harder-hitting monsters. But we didn’t fully transition away from MF. Fleshrender came back in for Angelic Sickle (although it stayed in the cube in case there was easy/safe swapping to finish off a boss), so we lost only 50 MF on the ring with Fleshrender. We were also more willing to take out normal monsters with CS, resulting in regular trips to town to replenish mana potions.
The first area was safe and not too tedious, so we full-cleared. But the merc was super squishy and died anytime a boss pack came up. So we went back to the cold rogue (figuring we would go back to Normal when we hit the WP for higher stats). Then my biggest worry came to pass, given negative lightning resists (and nothing available to improve it): View attachment 10440
The first boss pack was the knight-type, which allayed my fears somewhat because it was less likely we’d run into convicted Gloams. But I still wasn’t taking risks and decided to full-clear to ensure Quinta wasn’t sniped from off screen when fighting Izual. Working clockwise we made steady progress, dodging bolts reasonably well. In all, she ended up getting hit 3-4 times with a red potion doing the job.
Then it happened. As we got almost all the way back to the stairs (and therefore where Izual had to be because we hadn’t found him yet), I cast a decoy, the green aura kicked in, multiple bolts hit and it poofed immediately. So I retreated and decided to approach the small unexplored area from the other side, hoping to lure Izual out so he wasn’t in the midst of whatever boss pack that was. It worked, as you can see, although he still had some regular Burning Souls mixed in: View attachment 10441
After making it through so many gloams, we decided to finish the full clear, whatever came. Meghan went down almost immediately, and I gave up after the second resurrection (although we had managed to lure out 6 or so regular gloams by that point). It was tense enough that I couldn’t take screenies.
With careful positioning of the Decoy (and occasional Valk recasts), we managed to lure out some knight minions, conforming it wasn’t a Burning Soul bosspack. We went in a couple more times to try to draw gloams or minions out from the aura. After two successful attempts we weren’t able to pull more out, requiring that we push in further to where the aura kicked in for Quinta. At exactly that moment three Souls decided to move out and surround her, blasting bolts. It took 6 big purples in total (including 1 immediately and 3 when she was still convicted and slivered while trying to retreat but in recovery lock), but that managed to pull out all the Souls.
Valk, Quinta, and the Decoy finished them off and then went back for the knight boss, who had only three minions left at this point. Easy enough. I decided to push the MF set up to the WP, and full cleared the City. When Runemaster dropped, I knew it was not meant to be (it would actually be pretty nice but too much strength is needed).
We picked up Hannah from Normal at the start of the next session. I then decided to ride Quinta’s luck for a little longer and kept the MF set up (in part, due to a mistake that I’ll explain below). I could rely on CS and LS to take out spawners safely, but then have switch to finish off bosses, so it was a bit slower but higher odds of an upgrade. Of course, worms and fleshbeasts rolled, but they weren’t as much of a problem with lightning skill tree now available (and better than blunderbore types actually).
PI Hephasto took some time but was safe enough after being drawn out from the platform area and isolated. Hell forge was perfect: View attachment 10442
We decided to hold off on up’ing a weapon until A5, and took a muling break at RoF WP. This lead to overhaul of gear. As mentioned, I had messed up my stat allocation, I guess due to having Razortine equipped at beginning of A3 and sinking all points into vita because +strength made it look like she was good to equip Aldur’s. Yeah, no . . . We had put points into strength at level up, but she was still in the 80s. So that is part of the rationale for sticking with MF set up for so long
Anyhow, after studying her stash, I realized the Nat’s helm would get Quinta to >95 strength, at the expense of resists (but not entirely due to 13@ roll). So she and the merc swapped headgear. I had also forgotten to mule in Manald earlier to allow mana leech, so we did that and dropped Angelic ring (AR wasn’t super important at this point). That then led to dropping Angelic in favor of up’ed Rockfleece due to damage reduction and higher defense (and not really useful stats from Angelic without the 3-piece bonus for fire resists). Switch shield is now Steelclash for resists. Amulet is still the weakest link, with Vidala’s staying in for cold resist (only alternative would be Cathan’s for 10 FHR).
The gear overhaul had the benefit of being aesthetically pleasing: View attachment 10443
CS was pretty safe, proceeding cautiously, with nothing of note dropping. She switched up between CS and regular attack with Fleshrender for mana leech. Hannah didn’t survive the Diablo fight, and his drop was pretty lame (Stormshield would have been nice in theory, but unequip-able due to strength requirement). Screenies of key moments below:
View attachment 10444
You can see her strategy for Infector, who thankfully wasn't convicted. The Valk poofed once, which caused a retreat to pentagram but not much other excitement. View attachment 10445
De Seis was pretty easy, with Valk and Decoy tanking the fanaticism pack and only one Valk recast needed. View attachment 10446
Hannah didn't survive the full Diablo fight, but it was pretty simple in the end. View attachment 10447
meh :\
I hope to finish her off (one way or another) next weekend. I’m going to go back to testing The Impaler, as I think the increased damage and ITD will aid mana leech and make it less tedious to go back to town for mana pots. I think I’ll up the Riphook and Twitchthroe for the merc, figuring the extra damage and safety for Hannah will be better than anything else we might do. Advice is welcome!
HotBones has killed Duriel (P3) and has sailed East to Kurast. He has 61 S/U items and is at level 59. The best item found recently was Mosers Blessed Circle round shield. It was +25 resist all and Hotbones put a perfect topaz and a perfect emerald into the two sockets. That fixed resists for the rest of NM. The second best item was Chance Guards chain gloves (added +30 MF). That gives Hotbones 199 MF.
Twenty-one items have dropped in NM Act 2.
Skills: Clay Golem 11; Golem Mastery 16; Summon Resist 2; Iron Golem 1; Blood Golem 1; Fire Golem 8; Teeth 1; Corpse Explosion 1; Bone Spear 20; Amplify Damage 1; Weakness 1; Terror 1; (next point will be placed into Decrepify)
HotBones has killed Mephisto (P1) and is in the Pandamonium Fortress talking to an angel! He has 77 S/U items and is at level 62. No good items were found in Act III, at least none that could be used. He did find Ginther' Rift and Spectral Shard unique items, but they are not helpful.
Sixteen items have dropped in NM Act 3.
Skills: Clay Golem 11; Golem Mastery 16; Summon Resist 2; Iron Golem 1; Blood Golem 1; Fire Golem 8; Teeth 1; Corpse Explosion 1; Bone Spear 20; Amplify Damage 1; Weakness 1; Terror 1; Decrepify 1; Bone Spirit 2;
Resistances:
Wolron, are you planning on running the full Angelic's set the whole game? If not, that Spectral Shard is actually a great weapon if you plan on casting a lot of bone spears.
I am expecting to use the angelic set the rest of the game. In fact, I did use it the rest of the game. If I had appreciated that +50% cast rate, I might have considered the Spectral Shard, but you give up a lot when you lose the set bonuses.
As you can see from my next post, it is a moot point now.
HotBones has been killed by de Seis. I had been playing on P5 and having no troubles, so I expected to stay on that until facing Diablo. Confidence is my biggest enemy.
I did find four more items in Act IV:
A second "Silks of the Victor"
Another Sandar's Taboo
Doom Slinger Repeating Xbow
Sigon's Gage
I thought that Sigon's Gage might be a useful item because HotBones was already using three Sigon's items. However, putting on the Gage and taking of the Chance Guards was a waste of time. There was no bonus for the fourth Sigon item. The Gage only has +10 to strength and +20 AR. So, HotBones died with the Chance Guards on.
I guess I will have to choose between a Barbarian and a Paladin, because I have tried all the others. The devil on my left shoulder things that a singing Barbarian is best, but the Angel on my ring shoulder says that a Saint would be a better choice. I think a Paladin gets the nod. If so, his name is Paul.
I have been thinking about that. I have kind of been captivated by the SU tournament, but I do have seven characters waiting for me there. I think the temptation now is to finish all seven of my characters here first because I only have to kill two more of them off.
My sixth attempt is with Paul the Paladin. He will start with Holy Bolt, grow into Blessed Hammer and mature as a Fist of Heavons Paladin. So far, he has killed Andariel and prefers battling the undead. Radament should be easy with 12 points in Holy Bolt. My real challenge is going to find a way to kill lightning immunes. Maybe the Hammer will solve that problem.
The three items found so far are:
Cleglaw's Claw found in the black Marsh at level 16
Cathan's Sigil found in the Cathedral at level 19
Umbral Disk found in the catacombs level 3 at level 20
The Andareal drop was lousy: five rares and one magic item. The magic item was a skull cap that failed to be a set item. The rares were not even close to uniques.
Sorry for the deeds but glad you're back at it again @Wolron Update time for Quinta! We up’ed the Twitchthroe and Riphook as discussed earlier, and then embarked on the final act: View attachment 10477 View attachment 10478 A5
So, she still had negative resists for lightning and poison, -47 for lightning. Thinking through the Act, my biggest worries were Anya rescue (rolling gloams), Ancients Way (Moonlords), WSK2 (rolling gloams), and WSK3 (rolling Moonlords). Ancients can be tricky, but I planned to reroll amp’ed mods, so it wasn’t likely to be dangerous.
I was a bit concerned about Nihl, which I planned to tackle after reaching Mat status, largely due to possibility of Moon Lords. Slingers or Quill Rats could be tough if they rolled as guest monsters, but that would be more tedious than dangerous.
She lucked out on the early areas, with imps, ice boar-types, and berserkers rolling for the most part. No slingers or quill rats! We full cleared Bloody Foothills, but then hugged the right wall to reach Crystalline Passage. Hellmouth dropped along the way, but not useful for her.
We tagged WP in Crystalline Passage, resulting in full clear of the area, and then went down to rescue Anya. Witches, vipers, and skeleton mages. I got only one action shot of a witch boss pack. Needless to say, we took as direct a path as possible to rescue Anya and pick up +10@ resists. So we were now only -37 lightning.
She picked up another Kinemil’s Awl and Tancred’s armor along the way, with another Vidala’s bow dropping in Glacial Trail and Cathan’s ring dropping in Frozen Tundra. This nasty boss rolled in Frozen Tundra, but he wasn’t too dangerous, just slow. Then my biggest worry: View attachment 10479
I ended up missing the screen shot because he was extra fast. If this boss had also been amp’ed or extra strong, I think that would have been that. But Quinta and team managed the situation. We rolled two more, with the second one requiring a full retreat after the Valk poofed quickly. Thankfully, he wasn’t extra fast, so the retreat was successful and also strung out the minions to allow a fairly easy Round 2: View attachment 10480 View attachment 10481
Because WP was all the way on the other side of the map from exit, we decided to press to the Summit even though we had only 2 extra full purples in the stash. We committed to taking on the first roll without amp, and two rolls later, it was on. We managed to split them up so Korlic and Madawc followed to the entrance: View attachment 10482
We got Madawc stuck behind the northeast wall and could focus on Korlic. He was stoneskin, but Quinta couldn’t contribute because he attacked her through the Valk taking off nearly half of her life each hit. So ultimately moved a little southeast and let Hannah do her thing, even if it took 20 minutes.
I decided to briefly check how many potions we’d used, and then Madawc got nasty, telebombing Quinta from behind the wall (he had that mod, which we knew, but didn’t expect that maneuver). With the momentary distraction, he almost got her, as she dropped below 400 HP but a big purple allowed her to move up to the northwest and out of harm’s way: View attachment 10483
It took only 15 minutes, but Korlic eventually fell, and then 5 minutes later Madawc was down. Talic was fine, as Quinta just stayed perpendicular to him and the path the Valk, who was his main target: View attachment 10484
WSK1 & 2 were fortunate rolls. Defiled, witches, and hierophants for WSK1 (a multishot CI boss of the latter the only slightly tricky bit). Bats, beetles and vipers in WSK2, with the 2x LI roll making Quinta a spectator for the most part, but perfectly safe.
She got a map with the WP one short corridor from the stairs. There were bosspacks between WP and stairs, but we saved to grab more full purples and mule off to free up the stash, worrying in the back of our minds that the next roll would have gloams . . . which it did. We managed to safely navigate to the stairs.
WSK3 rolled Moon Lords, with this guy greeting us early (a mage boss pack was mixed in also). We retreated to split up the minions a bit and managed it easily enough. The mage boss had dropped B-K mythical sword (I could think of several TC87 rolls that would have been more helpful!). We then encountered one more Moon Lord boss pack, which required a couple tactical retreats to finally take down.
No gloams in the Throneroom. The waves were pretty straightforward, with the second wave actually being the worst due to resurrecting and still-negative poison resists. Here’s the Baal fight, which took a little less than 5 minutes (we had muled in the up’ed Razortine for extra slow for this purpose): View attachment 10485
We had also muled in the 3-piece Angelic for when Baal was slivered, but the drop still ended up being useless. Nihl was uneventful, with no other S/U drops since the B-K sword. We skipped Cows, and have called her complete, with these her final gear and stats:
Quinta, the Level 83 Valk/Passive/CS/LS Zon, and Hannah, the Level 82 Normal Cold Rogue; Matriarch; Total S/Us=120, Equipped=16
Thanks to @jiansonz for hosting! And to everyone who provided feedback along the way. This was a fun way to move another untwinked character to higher levels.
What's next? Pushing my untwinked 99er pally to 98.2 and going on a shopping spree with Quinta, followed by visiting Meph a few times for some item upgrades to get her ready to be my MFO entrant for Pindle and hopefully pick up more levels and gear.
Congrats to the Guardian! Now we have two in the tourney, with basically the same build...
@Wolron: Conviction can break most lightning immunes, I think, and a merc can do some decent physical damage if their equipment is OK. My Mirex hasn't had any troubles with immunes (although he hasn't reached Hell difficulty).
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