Go Addams Family! Good progress @Grisu !
Bit of a bad scroll roll that time...even if you were playing SC, the WT cost for the scroll is very very steep so not much chance you could use it anyway.
Venus is going down the magezon path too, sorta...likely going fire/explo instead of immolation though. Hoping exploding arrow spam will work well
I still have 2.5 chars to push to Kurast but should be able to post an update in the next few days.
[2019] [Tournament] Ability Scrolls Sept [by Chaostar]
- Thread starter Grisu
- Start date
Congrats @Grizu ! I'm impressed ! All 7 in act 3, with most mercenaries safe
About that scroll, yes it's very (too much?) expensive.
Could save you from a death in Hell, I guess it could be used.
In HC, it can be salvaged to use some other scroll. Combine it with spell #85, and it will be raining scrolls over you !
(Yes, it may be too exensive)
Some improvements for me 2, even if I have a lot to do to catch up with you
Anthema (Sorceress)
I immediatly found some javelins, I equiped instead og my useless fire staff. It deals a lot of damage, Bishibosh was killed in 3 shots, Dark Spearwomen and gargantuan beasts are one shot killed…
I traded them for a +2 ice bolt scepter, as I unlocked the cold skill branch.
I found Arctic Furs in a barrel, in the mausoleum. The countess was slained soon.
Unfortunately, my mercerary rogue died soon, but I went through the act without trouble, trading my staff for a +2 Ice Blast.
A Unique Item fell in the cloister, for collection only, and Andariel was slained quietly, at lvl 16 once again.
Pulled a nice scroll !! Good to pull it early in the tournament, if you intend to use it. Can be salvaged too, for its high cost. I don't know if I'll play it.
126 Second chance : Chose one of your characters : each time he gets (only) one Ability Scroll by finishing an Act, you can use once 1 WP to redraw the scroll (discarded scroll gets back into the draw pool)
Wilderun (Amazon)
I chose to unlock Javelin skill tree.
1 point with power strike is enough to clean everything on first stages.
I gained a mercenary, but she died under coldcrow's arrows.
Nothing to report until the barracks. I felt I had more trouble to deal with enemies. Power strikes lvl 1 is not that powerful, Lightning Bolt requires too much mana.
So I decided to activate scroll #6, skill improvement, and push power strike to lvl 5.
It was better like that.
In the Jail, I dropped a nice shield. I decided to go crazy with my Wisdo Points, and spend 2 to allow me to wear a rare item.
The end of the act was quickly done, still killing everyone around.
Strangling gas potions can be the most powerful weapon to use in some situations
I never used them before that tournament, I gave a try after reading your comments, guys, and I appreciate them now !
Andariel was down soon, not giving any good item. I can travel to Lut Golein. I'm lvl 16.
Pulled a scroll before that :
scroll 149 : Mulligan. Will serve dome day. I would have prefered 148 or 150 but I won't complain about my luck so far !
Now I have 3 chars left, not really sure if I'll stick with the previous choices for them. I planned not to, to be honest, but now I was lucky to pull the mercenary scroll, I feel more like doing what I want.
So :
- assassin : stick with trap, or go for a kicker ?
- Druid : change for elemental, or stick with fury werewolf ?
- Necro : I hate that class. I don't feel like go for a summoner, even if you all seems to think it's the better thing to do. Duriel ca be very easy to beat with him, but it needs to open 2 skill trees (summon & curses) to get a golem and Iron Maiden.
what to do...
thanks a lot! didn't know about the sell / rebuy potions, just learnt it on your last report when you said something about saving your last potion !
I know that starting werewolf are incredibly slow, I had a lot of trouble in act1 on my first 2 attempts because of that, felt safer with regular javelins
I may go for elementary instead, I love the wind spells.
About kicker, the main advantage is it's powerful in early acts. Duriel won't be a problem, I'm confident to bring her safe to NM unless I make some stupid move I'm used to
And necro... gosh, they are the WorstI just don't like the crowd control way to play, just watch skeletons so the work, thow some curses and resurrect corpse. I may not play any necro after all...
Well, now that you've got the merc scroll, you could go Poison and Bone Spells and just go for Corpse Explosion (and bone spear for bosses). Your merc should provide you with the first corpse to get the CE chain going.Chaostar said:And necro... gosh, they are the Worst
Good luck! Will check the scoring system later, but I do the tournament mostly for fun anyways
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Before anyone of you tries to kill off their rogue on purpose to get an Act III one...I was thinking and finally testing this on a non-tournament character:
If you get your merc killed, you WON'T get another one from the Gidbinn quest, you can only resurrect your old one or hire a new one (well, you could, but you aren't allowed due to tournament rules of course
So that means my Assassin won't have another shot at a merc...I really should have chosen Shadow skill tree for Shadow Warrior as a minion...
EDIT: Spelling...
EDIT2: I really should think about restarting and never get an Act I merc in order to get an Act III merc...
I'd leave rules as they are - leaves room for a future iteration of the tourneyChaostar said:
Well, I probably won't need the merc in Normal difficulty too much, but Iron Wolves would have sped up things quite a bit. Alas, only Rogues for me
BTW, 1 out of 7 Already made it to the Pandaemonium Fortress. Writeup incoming the next few hours. Went with the Paladin first again, and he even kept his Rogue alive
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As promised, my first Act III writeup for
Fester, the Holy Freeze Paladin
Things started out pretty good besides the usual scary boss packs. Miraculously, I wan't even hit by Sszark and the first piece of Khalim retrieved
I know that you all like loot pics, so here are the only 2 S/U drops this Act. The latter upgraded my normal Belt, the first is probably worse than my Berserker's Headgear (because Fire Resistance seems more important in Act III and IV than cold)
My first stair trap in Act III with Vipers...fortunately not a boss pack. I had forgotten to place choking gas potions on weapon switch (most of the time I have a bow on weapon switch), so I had to fight my way out, which worked ( I managed to get back out of the dungeon and went back, that's why there aren' more corpses. I guess it were around 9 Vipers?). Holy Freeze really is good for your safety!
There was another double boss pack in one of those temples: CE Archers and CE beetles - nasty, because I got slowed constantly, and CE beetles releasse invisible Frost Novas everytime they are put into hit recovery... but I had room to maneuver and used some gas potions (which don't trigger the Charged Bolts from the Beetles) and finished off the remaining two bosses seperately.
In between those screenshots, not a whole lot intersting happened. The next situation where I had to improvise was a CE CI Blood Lord - The first time I had to use my 1 pt Holy Shock Aura.
The Council members were quite tame, esp. since only 2 Blood Lords spawned with each of them and no minions for Wyand and Maffer:
The fight against Mephisto was quite easy: I loaded up on Antidote and Thawing potions, activated Holy Freeze and started hitting Mephisto. The only scary attack was his Charged Bolt, which dropped me by 50% instantly, but he only used it three times and I only needed one Full Rejuv.
Lo and behold - the mighty green BP!
The staff looks intersting though if I ever get a scroll that lets me use staffmods.
After all, my scroll luck was at its usual as I rolled
#74 Skill improvement : Pick 1 skill (per character) you already have 1 pt invested : improve your knowledge of that skill by 1 tier (Apprentice : invest up to 5 skill points, Efficient up to 10, Skilled up to 15, Master up to 20)
That now lets me invest up to 25 skill points - yikes! Not needed so far, but I will go next with my Necro, so I will probably use those scrolls to build my own unbeatable Skeleton Army!
Thanks for reading!
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Yes, I cleaned everything. Act III is much faster than Act II though (those false tombs simply take way too long to cleanChaostar said:
Still, you'll only get a few levels in Act III and IV normal (my Paladin for example gained only 3 levels - from 23 to 26). That means you should plan to face Diablo without access to level 30 skills...
Well, in the long run the improvement scroll will serve me well, so I'm not complaining
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Sol Family Update!
After the short stint and sudden death of Saturn the Sorceress, Mercury the Paladin stepped forward to avenge her. He had completed act 1 at the low level of 12 so had some catching up to do. Fortunately we have access to the /players command and we took full advantage, starting at players 3 and working our way up throughout the act.
Shortly into the sewers he happened upon a weapon upgrade:
With new weapon in hand, proceeded to the depths of the sewers to take on old Radament:
It was around this time it dawned on me that I could shop for a +zeal scepter...after many trips to Drognan, who happily placed his shop near the town entrance, I ended up with this fine piece:
That allowed for the maximum 5 swings per zeal which helped immensely and was my weapon of choice to and through the Viper temple. At this point I had yet to improve a particular skill, planning to become a hammerdin starting at level 18. I managed to reach level 18 just prior to entering the maggot lair but given the tight spaces in both the maggot lair and viper temple, I held on to this zeal scepter until roughly level 21.
I then used the skill improvement scroll to unlock blessed hammer up to level 5 and shopped a +3 BH scepter. Again, many visits to Drognan until his supplier came through for us. I headed into the palace cellar a newly minted hammerdin where I found a new unique on this journey:
Dimoak's Hew:
Code:Dimoak's Hew Bardiche Two Hand Damage: 2 - 54 Durability: 30 of 50 Required Level: 8 Required Strength: 40 Fingerprint: 0x55e23260 Item Level: 18 Version: Expansion 1.10+ +20% Increased Attack Speed 100% Enhanced Damage -8 Defense +15 to Dexterity
A nice merc weapon, if I had a merc. Stashed for now.
Arcane was no trouble at all for all those flying hammers. Just had to manage the blue bottle addiction a bit and brought summoner to an end. Yay +3 WT, which I banked for now as I don't have any currently useful scrolls to unlock.
I found him along the first or second path but given the relative ease of the area, I proceeded to clear the rest of the paths for xp and gear finds. Nothing useful found but now running at /players5 I was nearly level 23.5.
Being a bit impatient, which will probably cost me gear options in the future, I decided hitting 24 to unlock holy shield wasn't worth the wait so headed straight to Tal Rasha's tomb.
Fling some hammers, run, drink some heals, run, fling some hammers, run, zip in the portal, return, repeat. It took about 5 trips to town to stay healthy and restock potions and one near death (just one more punch from the bug = dead) but in the end Mercury prevailed!
Not much that was useful to him but finished the act at a happy level of 23.5. As always when I complete an act, I rushed to random.org for my new roll and up popped 51. Now I don't know about the rest of my fellow tourney mates here but I do not have any of the scroll numbers memorized so I have to pull up the full deck list next and see what that nets me...and I nearly jumped for joy!
51 - You can hire / resurect / heal a mercerary and equip him following your characters abilities (3WT)
So while I am disappointed that I still can only improve 1 skill to apprentice, this scroll is a game changer I intend to unlock immediately with the next character, Venus the Amazon.
Short status:
4 more still to tackle the desert.
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Venus the Amazon was the first character that I began the tournament with. Maybe not my brightest decision but I wanted to play things a bit differently than the others and also remember my early days where I always started with the ranged characters. She finished up Act 1 also at a low level of 12 so also had making up to do.
Since she was the first, I had a to unlock the skill tree as well as improve a skill to apprentice (lvl 5) before heading out of town. I chose the bow and crossbow tree and brought cold arrow to apprentice, intent on making an elemental bowa. I also quickly unlocked scroll 51 (hire/heal/equip mercenary) and found her a nice companion in Waheed, a combat paladin.
Waheed proved to be a great asset. I would chill enemies with scattered cold arrows while he chopped through the mobs. We worked our way to Radament first. No problem for the Mighty Waheed:
This cold and cutter duo made quick work in the Halls of the Dead, the Maggot Lair, and Viper temple. Here's Waheed skewering an over grown maggot after I set off several bug bombs to clear the room (choking gas potions are great here) :
Didn't spend real long in the palace cellar and headed into the Arcane Sanctuary.
What a pain...floating in midair like that Waheed lost all sense of direction, well, actually pretty much all sense entirely. Standing in a corner watching me take the stairs and not helping out. I actually had an NDE here, sadly no screen shot, where I actually chickened and ended up save and exiting. It was the path with the overlapping balconies with stairs between the layers. I couldn't get the goat men and ghoul lords to come up the stairs to us, and I couldn't get Waheed to follow me down the stairs. So I decided I would run down and drop a portal to town and return with Waheed at my side. Except it didn't quite go as planned. I made it down the stairs and used the scroll of portal just fine but was then swarmed by goatmen. I was chugging potions left and right, watching the losing battle of my health bulb while trying to click on the portal but I could not find the sweet spot to make it clickable, the goatmen hit boxes were apparently covering it. No way to run back up the steps and no way to click on the portal I decided to save and exit rather than watch another of the Sol family perish so soon.
Upon our return to the sanctuary I worked harder at getting the goat men to come to us, with a few potions thrown in here and there when it wasn't working out.
And we finally made our way to the Summoner platform, who know doubt had heard we were on the way and had plenty of time to call in some reinforcements:
But with some patience and potions, Waheed and I were able to clean up the neighborhood and earn another 3WT which were stashed to replenish those spent unlocking scroll 51.
On to Duriel in Tal Rasha's Tomb we went, happening upon another set item for the Sol family:
Isenhart's Lightbrand - Not really useful for a bowazon, but stashed in case I needed the damage boost.
Code:Isenhart's Lightbrand Broad Sword One Hand Damage: 17 - 18 Durability: 23 of 32 Required Level: 8 Required Strength: 48 Fingerprint: 0x4b42a989 Item Level: 20 Version: Expansion 1.10+ +20% Increased Attack Speed +10 to Minimum Damage Set (2 items): +120 to Attack Rating (Based on Character Level)
Shortly thereafter we encountered this trying bunch of Greater Mummies:
That screenshot about 5 seconds before Waheed face planted on the floor. Back to town for magical resurrection, we tried again with better success:
I wondered why I bothered, no use for this stuff
And then the Duriel battle. Nothing real exciting, the cold arrows kept slow on Duriel well enough that heal potions were able to keep Waheed fairly well off. I did return to town to heal up and restock potions more than once.
And nothing of value was dropped.
Venus finished up Act 2 at a nice level 24, and a random.org roll of 112.
112 - You can equip 1 item with "life leech" affixe (6WT)
I think I may have been quite frustrated with this character had I needed to tackle the act without a mercenary. Cold arrow was very mana intensive for all the more damage it added. I likely would have needed to melee my way through which would have been quite a slow undertaking.
3 more to go for Normal Act 2!
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Neptune the Summonmancer was my next choice to tackle the act.
He left off at nearly level 16 with a +2 Raise Skeleton, +2 Raise Mage, +2 skeleton mastery shopped wand and a +1 raise skeleton head for a shield which allowed for 4 skeletons, 3 mages, and a clay golem army...plus, having unlocked a merc scroll with Venus, a nice offensive guard named Ilzan who allowed the skeletons to strike true more often.
Radament was a breeze:
As were the Halls of Dead. Maggot Lair was slower but not difficult. I ended up keeping the army smaller to reduce blocking of the Ilzan the mercenary who was the powerhouse hitter. Before heading into the Viper temple I did a bit of gambling and managed these decent dual res boots:
Then we tackled Fangskin and crew to retrieve the amulet:
Managed another Sol family set item:
Cathan's Seal - which I equipped as my set item for the small damage reduction vs not wearing a set item.
Code:Cathan's Seal Ring Required Level: 11 Fingerprint: 0x89ff46f5 Item Level: 19 Version: Expansion 1.10+ 6% Life stolen per hit Damage Reduced by 2 Set (2 items): +10 to Strength
Tackled the summoner for another 3WT and proceeded into the Canyon. Like the Maggot lair, I had to keep the army a bit small in the arcane sanctuary to avoid blocking in Ilzan. I also used the run ahead and portal to town to move the army forward...fortunately without the NDE issues I encountered with Venus.
I had just dinged level 22 and really wanted to reach level 24 for the summon resist and iron golem skill unlocks. So, bumped the player settings up a bit and into the various tombs we went. We had to clear most of the canyon itself as well as 4 additional wrong tombs before reaching our coveted level 24. It was worth it though, we picked up a nice weapon upgrade for Ilzan along the way:
Having access to iron golem and knowing it would be a large part of my Duriel attack, I stocked up on a few fodder weapons to be able to resummon during the battle (mace, morning star, kris) plus started with an iron golem:
This was the quickest Duriel battle yet. She wiped out my little army quite fast, except for trusty Ilzan who kept her busy enough for me to drop one of the weapons and summon a new golem. Which perished in 2 hits, but gave Ilzan time to heal up. And the next golem, the same....but the damage from thorns and Ilzans determined scythe wielding had brought Duriel to the brink. I used the last weapon and summoned forth one more iron golem which Duriel quickly turned to attack and wham, she did herself in.
No trips to town were needed and the fight lasted the length of time to drop a weapon and summon a golem 3 times. With a few potion tosses to Ilzan in between.
A nice all rare drop, but nothing that turned out to be useful. Wrapped up the Act at level 24 and rolled a 22.
22 - You can equip 1 item with "Fast run/Walk" affixe (6WT)
Here's the current summary: No write-ups currently waiting.
Mars the Barbarian and Uranus the Assassin Act 2 endeavors still to come...
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