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Vessel of Hatred

5 Stages of Grief Tournament

I am also considering pushing through Act 3 quickly to minimize the randomized stats/skills. Possibly Act 4 as well if I find that I cannot "live off the land." I want to head into the CS with a good stockpile of potions and town portals. Running back to the RoF waypoint for a heal would get old very quickly.

Anyways, here's a little preview of Act 2:

LKW3LRg.jpg
 
Luctus (lvl 12) - Cold Plains, Burial Grounds, Mausoleum, Crypt, The Cave

The cave had a painful Spectral Shot pack of archers when I poked my head down there. So, first I went to kill Blood Raven for Rogue Merc which helped a lot. Got a nice upgrade on weapon, and finally bought a wand with some curses for switch.
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Holy crap, what a rookie move that was! Kraestra reached Dark Wood and got too fixated on killing all the Shamans in the first big encampment I came up on, next thing I know I was surrounded by a cursed boss pack of spear women in the trees. I think it was the second lance that did me in, the first one amped me of course. I think I have like 40 HP in her health pool to begin with. I was trying to move through there too quickly and it cost me. Perhaps I'll go back to playing my Zerker after all.
 
Introducing Saffron, the undecided Cold/Fire Sorceress. I opted for the no stat/skill approach through Act 1 (I just can't bear to sacrifice all those drops!). My early weapon of choice was a stack of throwing knives, multiple stacks actually. And on the switch, a stack of superior ethereal javelins reserved for select foes such as Bishiboshi, Coldcrow, etc. Five(!) early charms "of shock" were especially useful.
Corpsefire dropped Hsarus' shield (+10 STR) which I was able to equip by wearing a chipped amethyst cap. Once equipped, I could remove the cap and still benefit from the shield's Strength bonus.
Assisting Saffron was a Fire Rogue Merc, I set her up with a Superior 3-socket hunter's bow (sapph/ruby/ruby) and 5 sockets in her helm/armor filled with various +min/max/envy jewels. By this point Saffron had acquired a +3 Ice Blast Orb. I had just enough +mana gear to sustain a consistent kill speed that was bearable with blue potions from the field. Topaz availability was extremely poor, by the late stages of Act 1 (p8 full clear) I had a scant 2 chips! Such a pittance of MF is sacrilege for my characters, so I made do with sapphires and rubies in my helm and armor, and I did appreciate the extra safety and convenience they provided.
I was on pace to break the rare Level 21 barrier for Act 1 Normal, however, the last couple floors of the Catacombs were very sparsely populated and lacked the Banished boss packs that might have tipped the scales for me. Andariel dropped a Topaz which was very much appreciated!
Of all my gear, the gloves were by far the most pathetic. Charsi imbued some leather gloves which turned out nice:View attachment 6101
At the start of Act 2, I forgot to take a screenshot before I placed several points into Str to get to 30 (still wearing Hsarus' shield and I can now wear a 3-socket breast plate.) Then I remembered to take the screenshot: View attachment 6102
The rest of the points I placed into Vitality.
I am leaning toward a Blizz/Hydra Sorc. For the skills, I placed as many points as possible into Ice Blast and the rest into Glacial Spike. I passed on the 1-hit wonders such as TK, Teleport, and Warmth. I hope to hit them randomly during Act 3.

jiansonz said:
I gave Fran enough stats for a Flail (41 STR, 35 DEX)
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Hmm, what's with the flail?
 
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Insane Wayne said:
Hmm, what's with the flail?
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My favourite weapon in Normal Act II is a Steel (the runeword) Flail. You can shop the socketed weapon from Fara, the requirered runes are pretty much guaranteed to drop in the early areas (can often be completed before finding the Cube), it's really quick, does very nice damage for that stage of the game (although with an enormous variation), Open Wounds, plus range is max for a 1-hander, so you can often hit incoming monsters more than once before they can hit you, especially if you have some cold damage to chill with the first hit (I have a frosty small charm). And it's super easy to bop greater mummies from outside their melee range.

Also, 41 STR is the amount needed for the best shoppable socketed helm in the act.
 
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@Southpaw8668 - Ouch, sorry about the loss. The diminished life pool is definitely a big issue in the first act, good luck with your zerker!

@Insane Wayne - Smart about hoping to hit the 1-point wonders randomly, hope that works out!

@NanoMist brings up a good point to think about for A4. Maybe keep an extra full tome or two of TPs in the stash for the Diablo fight. ;)

Great job to everyone else, loving the progress and screenies. Let's get a table started, shall we? As stated in the rules, I'll keep this thing updated and will make sure to get a table onto every page to keep it fresh.

--

Code: 
Table of Heroes:
Forum Name       Class      Char Name        LVL    ACT    Area       
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
jiansonz         Sorc       Fran             20     A2     Lut Gholein
Nanomist         Barb       Ruru             20     A2     Lut Gholein
InsaneWayne      Sorc       Saffron          20     A2     Lut Gholein
OldSoldier       Necro      Amodan_Crane     15     A1     Black Marsh
T72on1           Sorc       Through_Grief    13     A1     Stony Field
DiablotwoinDC    Necro      Luctus           12     A1     Cold Plains
Dezrok           Druid      Naruma           ??     A1     Stony Field
Southpaw8668     Sorc       Trisha            1     A1     Rogue Encampment
Dazliare         Amazon     ????              1     A1     Rogue Encampment
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
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Pb_pal, add me to the table please. I have started a necromancer named Amodan_Crane who has just rescued Deckard Cain with the help of his rogue mercenary, who happens to be doing almost all of the work for him, minus a few well placed Amp Damage curses from his shopped wand. It is tough being so weak, fragile and unskilled! Level 15 I believe.
 
Sign me up!

Starting an Assassin called Svanhild.

Quick Question @ pb_pal : Regarding the act 2 Anger allocation - I plan on this being some form of kick/blade/trap hybrid; what would you class as the 'main' stat for the build?
 
@Arranj - since str increases kick damage (well, dex does too, but str is the primary increaser of dmg when kicking with boots), I'd say you can pick between either strength (kicks) or energy (traps). Up to you to determine which way you'd like to go. :)
 
Pb_pal said:
@Arranj - since str increases kick damage (well, dex does too, but str is the primary increaser of dmg when kicking with boots), I'd say you can pick between either strength (kicks) or energy (traps). Up to you to determine which way you'd like to go. :)
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Aha, str it is then ^^

Another question regarding act 4 if i may: Is there anything in the rules against shopping a load of potions at the end of act 3 (filling inventory/stash) to use in act 4? is this a legitmate practice at all? Or is it a scale thing, like taking a handful across is ok but filling an ATMA stash with 1 milllion of them is a nono? (which obviously it would be as its pure cheese)
 
Arranj said:
Aha, str it is then ^^

Another question regarding act 4 if i may: Is there anything in the rules against shopping a load of potions at the end of act 3 (filling inventory/stash) to use in act 4? is this legit at all? Or is it a scale thing, like taking a handful across is ok but filling an ATMA stash with 1 milllion of them is pure cheese?
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I didn't explicitly state against it, so you're free to do as you please. Technically though you'd only be able to bring in an inventory and stash's worth of pots along with you per area due to the full clearing aspect, unless you start doing some pretty serious monster-dodging on reloading the game.

IMO it probably wouldn't be worth it to even do that, pots drop as a pretty high rate and with Jamella as the 'fixed well', I'd say TP scrolls will be a bigger problem. If that's how you choose to spend your gold, more power to you!
 
@Pb_pal - Swap that Zerker on the list, I'm going to try something different and play a tri-element Sorceress named Trisha. She'll eventually be deploying Hydra/Frozen Orb/Charged Bolt and will be picking up items in the beginning as well as boosting Mana as her prime skill.
 
Luctus (lvl 15) - Stony Field, Underground Passage, Dark Wood, Tristram

Full clear is getting tedious already. I'm still trying to stick with it, but there may be a stray monster here or there that I've missed. Found this Preserved Head which made a world of difference (casting Bone Armor and RS), without losing weapon slot. Also picked up Arctic Furs. ;)
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View attachment 6110
 
Finally !!

View attachment 6121

It took me a very long time, but I'm finally through Act 1, at level 20. Static from a Staff, then poisoning potions got her down eventually.

These were my stats upon entering Act 2:

View attachment 6123

Nothing major to report from Act 1. We both used our 3 chipped bows until everything was dead. Frost Nova from a staff on switch for crowd control. Good thing the staff also had Frozen Armor :).

O yes, this map layout was cool:

View attachment 6124

Hopefully Act 2 will be a bit more exciting, with me actually starting to cast skills.

Good luck everybody !!
 
Insane Wayne may have had bad topaz luck in Act I, and so did I. How about this chippie distribution:
Diamond 17
Sapphire 16
Emerald 15 (plus a big one)
Amethyst 11
Ruby 11
Skull 7
Topaz 4

On the other hand, since my merc wasn't wearing any MF in the first areas, there wasn't any reason not to go nuts with Blaze:

View attachment 6115
"I pity the fools who walk in that!" Even fire mages and fire archers suffered a lot.

But once Gwinni had some MF, I let her do almost all of the killing. Fran was reduced mostly to a 'stand around' tank at times. I almost felt bad playing like this, since I managed to convince the tourney host that VIT is my offensive stat (I poured 40 points into it during the act). Almost. :)

Ith runes start to drop regularly in the Arcane Sanctuary or thereabouts. I got two, plus I had found this jewel which was even better:

View attachment 6126
The socketed bow is a Superior one (+1 max) so it now does 4-37 damage. Lone mosters that Gwinni fires at from long range barely ever reach us before dying.


Last two skill points in the act were used in Chain Lightning and Nova, opening up for Thunder Storm. Not sure if that was a smart move or not.

Duriel: Statics and tanking. Over in 5 seconds. Nothing good in the drop.


Better topaz luck in Act II and early Act III. Two Breast Plates and a Full Helm with Flawsies now.

Had about 1.58 million to gamble up at the start of Act III. Got Boots of Luck, one Circlet of Luck (want another) and also what feels like a keeper (maybe even worthy of a socket reward):

View attachment 6116

Too bad it wasn't Scintillating (I saw that spawn on another circlet at the same clvl) but still, not bad.

I plan to add 22 stat points in STR so I can wear a Great Helm later. Since I'll earn 25 stat points in Act III, I decided to roll for 3 points as soon as I got them. They went to Energy.

Closing in on the last level-up in the act now, and then I'll roll 22 stat points in one go (with 50% chance of them going exactly where I want them to) and four skill points. 'Good' (or at least 'Decent') skills roll are about half of them but there are of course several useless ones too.


[Highlight]Fran the Blaze Sorceress and Gwinni the Fire Rogue, level 31, Travincal next[/highlight]


Question: since the cow level counts as part of Act V in the tourney, does that mean that while playing it, we are free to the take the WP to Harrogath to sell stuff?
 
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Luctus (lvl 18) - Black Marsh, The Hole, The Tower, Taome Highlands, The Barracks

Boss packs are getting a bit rough. They take down my piddly 2 skeletons in just a few seconds. Merc and I have to kill/summon as quickly as those skellies die. :confused: Did get some MF on my imbue, only 4 topaz so far +11% on those boots.
View attachment 6127

Edit: Are we allowed to adjust player settings? I'm not so sure Luctus is gonna be able to handle Andariel..

Edit2: Booyakasha!! :D
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Great work everyone! Getting excited to see what people will do once they start being able to use proper skills. :p

jiansonz said:
Question: since the cow level counts as part of Act V in the tourney, does that mean that while playing it, we are free to the take the WP to Harrogath to sell stuff?
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Sure. I always consider it an extension of A5 rather than A1, and honestly the finds should be subject to the higher maximum pay-out since you've already beaten the difficulty, so I see no problem with this at all.
 
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