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Vessel of Hatred

5 Stages of Grief Tournament

RIP Through_Grief.

Amodan_Crane managed to make headway toward finalizing his grief process, gaining near full acceptance of all that he has endured. He left Harrogath at level 86 and hoping to make at least 87 before the end of his journey. I'll structure the update a little differently this time, showing the drops first and then some of the action shots afterward.

Some of his drops and creations at the start of the act. The Black devil star was a fun item but I didn't mind too much when it died because the knockback changed the battlefield a bit sometimes and slowed us down. Amodan_Crane used the Fal rune he got from the Hellforge and used it to make a Lionheart, which he put in an elite base. The resultant +90 to life was (and still is) able to be used with it's own strength bonus. I keep a +17 Strength amulet in the game stash to equip it each time I start a new game, and once equipped, it allows itself to remain on. The loss of 20% resist all between it and the Smoke runeword was partially overcome by Anya's salvation and a 9% res all jewel in the circlet, which got two sockets - booyah! I equipped enough charms to at least get to 16% FHR, but Amodan_Crane rarely gets hit and almost never goes into hit recovery. It seems that the hit recovery does not kick in when bone armor is being reduced, and I rarely run out of bone armor. The fungal amulet was SOO close to being a great amulet, and the fire and +life charm is a great one no matter the size of it. The insight thresher lasted not very long, and I will explain how in a bit.
View attachment 7120

More of his nice finds later on in the act. Two really nice grand charms, which I don't use, ANOTHER Seraph's Hymn amulet (my only other unique amulets in this character's journey were a Nokozan and the other Seraph's). I also got a 5 os ethereal great poleaxe, which will make a great Obedience some day maybe.
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Here is a shot of our first and so far only unbreakable PI boss in the game. We got him with poison, open wounds and bone spears.
View attachment 7122

Here is another blood lord boss, but we got him pretty easily. The hardest part in the Abaddon areas were the demon imps and witches which threw their orbs of doom all over the place. There was plenty of opportunity to play Demon Dodgeball.
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Here's where I screwed the pooch. I thought I'd be crafty and run the areas at /P3 (my standard through the entire difficulty so far) and pop the sparkly chest in the Glacial Trail at /P8. But, I forgot to change it back and so everything was taking a long time to kill and the enemies had a lot more power and they ended up dispatching all my IGs, including the IK Maul, the Champion Axe, the Insight Thresher and all others I really cared about. I might still have one or two sources of CB handy for the last few areas but I'm running out due to this goofy mistake. I got some great experience though!
View attachment 7124

View attachment 7125

Check out the sweet firing squad I had lined up against Frozenstein and his pals.
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Nihlathak was not difficult and we cornered him eventually. He got one explosion off that hit my bone armor and some of my health.
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Amodan_Crane got to level 87 (a goal since Wendy needed level 87 to get enough strength to upgrade her Crow Caw but we still need to find a Lem to actually do the upgrade) and is at the Frozen Tundra WP.
 
So Amodan_Crane moved ever onward toward the goal of complete acceptance of his grief. He realized he could only finally obtain inner peace if his (actual) demons were expunged from the world of Sanctuary. He last found himself at the Frozen Tundra WP, very near the Ancient's Way.

Along the way, he found himself sidetracked just a couple of times: in the Infernal Pit, and in the Icy Cellar. The Icy Cellar had areas where there were more opportunities for dodgeball.
View attachment 7166

After dispatching all enemies leading up to the summit of Mount Arreat, Amodan_Crane was feeling confident, but not stupid. I lowered the setting to /P1 for the Ancients and they managed to stay alive long enough to time out some of my rogue revives (great revives, I really like them) but there was one rogue left when the last ancient fell and I hadn't used a single potion or gotten hit or even targeted at all. Nice!
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In the Worldstone Keep there was a time or two that enemies knocked out the bone armor but there were not really any tense moments. It seems like the game had capitulated at that point, consigning itself to defeat by a superior force. Back to /P3 there, as I wanted to see if we could tick level eighty eight by the end of the journey.
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Worldstone Keep level 2 held poison horror mages, and they didn't even touch the IG. Ha!
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There was a boss pack of Blood Lords as a stair trap to the Throne of Destruction but they were about half a screen away when we entered and my three revives of Finger Mages (though weak themselves) were able to keep the undead busy for long enough to allow the arrows from Wendy's bow and the bone spears to knock them out. I knew then that the day was won. I finished clearing the level, which had Horadrim Ancients also, which are good revives, and then faced the waves of minions, all at /P8 (reviving most of their fallen comrades as they fell).
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At /P8 in hell you can imagine that Lister and company took a while to kill, and they were able to dispatch my IG (a Black runeword at the start) several times and I ran out of revives (failing to keep a wing unexplored for such an occasion) due to timers but I made enough space and some cheap purchased golem materials from Malah and we got them all. Sadly we came up just short of level eighty eight. Just for the last battle, I used one of my Rattlecages as an IG, equipped the other one we'd found and upgraded on Wendy (she used the Crow Caw the rest of the way once we hit hell difficulty) and gave her the upgraded Riphook, so she had OW and CB, and so did the Golem. I also had her put on the Blackhorn's Face that I got not long before. I hit Baal with tons of bone spears and kept him decrepified. His inferno attack shot a really long way and he cloned himself a couple of times despite the slowing, which surprised me. His mana burn inferno ALWAYS targeted Amodan_Crane. Maybe I was slow on the draw...
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Here's some of our drops in this last section. The amulet was a Metalgrid, a grailer. Baal's drop was junk. I should make up a T Shirt that says "I killed Quest hell Baal at /P8 with 284% MF and all I got was this lousy Shadowfang".
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LCS at the end after finishing him off and before doing the cows, which didn't give squat.
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He was darn easy to play, and nothing really gave him trouble. I think Blizzard messed up the power of revives. No way some rogues should be able to outlast the Ancients. And I had plenty of money to use my teleport amulet as much as I wanted, if I needed to actually keep the revives from poofing as much as they did, the dummies. I think I may play a Strafer with a Harmony bow just for the revives. Lastly, my drops were funny with this guy, if only on the amulet side of things. I'm super happy about the Metalgrid, but my four unique amulets were a Nokozan, the Metalgrid, and two Seraph's Hymns. Odd for sure, but I'm not complaining. I was able to make enough Iron Golems to have plenty of Crushing Blow and Open Wounds throughout the journey, but even with a maxed out Golem Mastery there were areas where he could not hack it and got killed when I really didn't want him to. I blame myself for being slow on the retreats, but I never got any circlets or amulets that had teleport plus other useful mods. It was definitely not for lack of trying either.


Final equipment:
+2 necro skills circlet with +29 strength and PSkull and a PRuby (final socket reward from Larzuk = 2 sockets, woo hoo!)
+3 Bone Spear White wand
+3 Bone Spear Rhyme necro head
+1 necro skills, +27 life, +11 res all amulet (Seraph's Hymn for IG summoning and +17 Str ammy to equip armor)
Lionheart Scarab Husk
Rare sharkskin gloves +22 CR, +26LR, 14% MF
Rare rings with life, energy, resists, FCR, overall they got my resists up to maxed out just fine
Coral (30 LR) demonhide sash of the whale (+81 life)
Rare boots +34 CR, +34FR, 10% FRW
Charms gave him +26FR, +4PR, 6LR, 19% MF, 17% FHR (2 frames), 68 mana and 210 life.

That's all folks! Thanks for the ride!

Guardian Amodan_Crane, level 87 Necromancer
 
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Awesome, OldSoldier!

Metalgrid was nice symbolic find, in light of the character build.

(indeed, Revives' amount of life/regeneration is a bit much. It isn't really balanced out by the skill's drawbacks.)
 
My heavy gambling (~22.5 million gold, plus what I got from selling 204 items too expensive to sell in Nightmare) resulted only in a small change: from a 60/21 Wyrm's Ring of Fortune to a 102/19 Bahamut's Ring of Fortune. I gambled boots and gloves (up to the 'chain' variants because upgrade to exceptional is pretty common, and the plate variants are then too heavy for Fran), Coronets and rings. A ton of rings - I got both Cathan's and Angelic...
Two of the Coronets were upgraded to Diadem, a base item type I've only seen a handful of. Same with the magical Corona a boss in the Durance dropped.

Travincal was quite tricky, with no less than five Heirophant bosses, four of them two-and-two close together. I solved those duo situations by having Gwinni attack one boss from her maximum range, on the opposite side of the other boss.

Geleb was a piece of work:

View attachment 7298

Is he always double immune these days? Looks like it, there is nothing in his random modifiers that boosts those two resists here.

Bremm Sparkfist's pack spawned close to the first room exit. I caught a glimpse of one of the minions even before I was done cleaning out the first room of a Blood Lord bosspack.

Bremm (LE + Holy Freeze + Cursed + Mana Burn) approached with a minion in tow. I took them to the stairs and double teleported to the bottom of the first room. Another minion appeared. Fran nailed it with freezing and bravely soaked up the Hydra shots (85% fire resist sure is handy):

View attachment 7299

Maffer was Cursed and too dangerous to fight in the open. I used the strip of land by the lava, and tried to teleport in such a way that Gwinni could still fire, while Fran was the one soaking up the Hydras.

Drank 42 of both antidotes and thawing potions before the Mephisto fight. Maybe that were a lot more than I needed, but why be cheap when the potions are so cheap?
This was to be sort of an "honest" fight (no moat trick before he was slivered), but I stayed well away from melee range after I had Static-ed him down to half. The melee attack was the only one I feared. Even if it took time, Fran was clearly at an advantage in the elemental battle:

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Looks like he can cast Blizzard too, but he only does this if he can't see you becuase of a wall. This was new to me.

Drop was useless. I didn't see a green or gold in the whole playing session either. Highest rune in the Durance was a Shael.

I filled my TP tome and bought another full one; repaired all gear. Muled in full purples to every empty inventory/stash/cube slot.


[Highlight]Conqueror Fran the Blaze/TS Sorceress and Gwinni the Fire Rogue, level 85, Hell Outer Steppes next[/Highlight]
 
Exams have kept me away from spamming this thread, but I hope to see the rest of this tournament through over the holiday break.

For a quick bump, I made my way into Lut Gholein, but not before spending some resources on upgrading my Shield to its exceptional variant. I also switched to a Might Merc, and divided my attributes into Dexterity and Vitality, with a bit of a skew on the latter, since my block chance is still doing rather well. For Skills, I decided to go grab Fanaticism, although I left it at a single point while I plan to finish maxing out Holy Shield first. These small changes had a rather drastic effect on my damage output as I'm now doing probably at least quadruple damage, and possibly at a lower breakpoint as well (I didn't check).

For the time being, I made sure to quickly grab my extra skill point courtesy of Radament and continued to max out Holy Shield and pumping Strength to channel that anger when I leveled.

Currently, I just cleared out Dry Hills and snagged the Far Oasis waypoint for the rest of my journey out in the desert. Given that I've mostly just been playing at /p1, I haven't actually been having too many problems killing enemies, so this large boost in offensive power has me killing basic enemies in only a few swings of the shield now, which feels excellent, and reduces the need to bumper car enemies around. I'm currently crutching on my Shield/charms/rings for the vast majority of my resists, with Salvation in my back pocket, so I'm feeling fairly resilient when it comes to most threats. We'll see how long that lasts.

View attachment 7407
Here's a bit of a visual update.
​
Kaltos the Smiter, Level 46, complaining about sand in his boots in Nightmare Far Oasis
 
Yesterday evening/night, I played one of the craziest D2 sessions I've experienced. It started around 8 o'clock. I took a few breaks (not many, and not that long) and it didn't end until 2.16 in the night.

I decided to start each area in Act IV Hell on /p1, and if I had established a good foothold (mostly valid for Outer Steppes, of course), there were no spawners and my trusty archer Gwinni was still with me, I would raise it to /p3.

Steppes had leapers, Doom Knights and Venom Lords. Quite doable, crank up to /p3. There was a double immune (FI + LI) leaper boss that would have been impossible for Fran to kill by herself. Venom Lords were a drag to kill. Not only are they FI and have lots of life, they must have very high lightning resist as well. Against a single Venom Lord, Fran alternated Ice Blast and Static Field, and she often needed up to ten of these combos until he beast was down to half life (and of course Gwinni was shooting at it the whole time during this).

Had to leave plenty of useless crap on the ground:

View attachment 7486

I'll never be able to meet that DEX requirement. Can't have this take up two valuable item slots...

'Death zone' I used to conquer the start of the Plains:

View attachment 7487

Plains did have spawners AND Burning Souls. Corpulents as well. Souls were more dangeorus for Gwinni than for Fran because of lower lightning resist and more stupid behaviour. When I found the exit after circling about 1/4 of the perimeter, I entered the City instead.

City had Corpse Spitters, Stranglers and Abyss Knight. Alrighty, /p3 here as well.

But these were no ordinary Abyss Knights. Once again, I ran afoul of the bug where they don't move. (Seriously, has nobody else seen this? Do I have a weird install because this is it least the 4th time I've seen it?!) Doable under normal circumstances when you can resurrect your merc 40 times if you need to. Much worse for this duo. Heck, even a regular pack meant trouble. Their awareness- and firing range are longer than Gwinni's, and that's very troublesome. They are LI, and Blaze (that would normally work, albeit slowly and not so straightforwardly) is useless if they don't move. For Fran, that leaves very low level cold spells and level 1 Fire Wall backed with level 19 Fire Mastery (can boost both by 2 levels with Spirit on the weapon switch). So, in practice, Fran couldn't kill them by herself.

(In hindsight, I have NO idea why I didn't use GS on the tighter packs. Would have saved a lot of trouble. Idiot me!)

If one of the three in a pack was a poison shooter, it wasn't that bad for Gwinni. She could win with the help of 1-2 rejuves. Because of the lag in the update of her life bar, I had to guess quite a bit, and very much be on the safe side. So rather give her too many than too few potions. I had brought plenty of purples, but they diminished rapidly, and there was still most of the Plains left to do (against Souls I can't avoid getting hurt quite a bit by).

An example of fighting a pack:

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Having Fran act as Annoying Target wasn't the norm, but I used it here to test it. Maybe that could be used against the Champ pack and the bosspack of Abyss Knights I had found. The hurtiest shots were the cold ones (only ~45 resist, and not a thawing potion to be found in the whole session (!)) but the magic (or is that lightning?) ones hurt as well. Poison added to the danger if the fight became long but fire was no problem (85% resist).

As for the Champs, I ended up using a different plan. They had spawned next to one of those "holes" in the terrain, so I used the hole in such a way that it blocked all but one of the pack from hitting Gwinni:
(okay, it was two here, but Berserkers have a puny amount of life)

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Taking a town portal sometimes makes an Abyss Knight move a little bit. You can see that here (as well as Fran trying to help out with her wimpy Fire Wall - not sure if it meant one required shot less by Gwinni or not...)

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Could this work on the bosspack as well? No, they were even more seriously bugged as f***! I've seen this before, those other times when Abyss Knights haven't moved. It's like the whole pack acts as one being. If one can hit, they all can, and they could hit through the wall, with invisible shots!!!

View attachment 7491

I mean COME ON, there is NO WAY they should be able to hit me from there! Bloody dangerous too, with them being CE so an added cold damage boost to every shot. Made three of the minions (fire/poison) dangerous, when they otherwise wouldn't be.

OK, I'll just leave them there.



Back to the Plains, then. This guy was owned:

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If you have a merc (even a ranged one), you can't use basic/normal Blaze running against a melee opponent if you want to be efficient, you have to mix in some teleporting as well. I've become quite good at this by now.

There were FIVE Soul bosses on the Plains. Here is #1:

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Three of the Soul bosses were CE. Even minions of those are hurtful, to both of us. The chilling also handicaps Gwinni. I was now slightly wary of my supply of purples, even if I still had about half of what I started with. That wasn't really the reason I failed to save Gwinni, though. It was simply too many Soul shots at once, at a time I had to move to avoid danger for Fran.

Alone again.

Okay, but everything in here can be fought with Blaze. I just need to be careful and smart, and most of all, stay on the move (which is much harder without the Vigor help from Harmony!) against Souls. Here is the creep that killed Gwinni (with the help of a bunch of minions, I presume):

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Fighting Souls with Blaze is kind of like fighting Diablo with Blaze, but they are more unpredictable and even harder to lure into the flames. Make large patches and try to lure them there. If they do go into thick flames, either tank them (scary with bosses!) or move in a large circle around them.

I failed to avoid the death nova from one of the CE bosses, but that only took about 1/3 of my life. I knew it could happen, so I made sure to drink when I was hurt there near the end.

Even if Thunder Storm deals no damage to Souls, it was still useful because it showed me where they were. They are hard to see, especially in thick Blaze patches.

TS was very effective against /p1 Trapped Souls, though.

There were also two bosspacks of Corpulents here, but with so much space at hand, killing them with Blaze was trivial.

When the Plains was cleared, I had a grand total of 11 full purples left, and a greater healer. Mana potions had been an issue on the Steppes (all that freezing and Static) but mana potions were abandoned in droves on the Plains. They are the most common drop from Souls, and the only times I even needed to drink any mana were a few times when Souls drained me.


Okay, maybe that AK bosspack has reset or something. Let's see. Nope, still moving as one being, bugged as all-get-out:

View attachment 7495

Good riddance, then. I'm stubborn, but not suicidal.


[Highlight]Conqueror Fran the depressed and desolated Blaze/TS Sorceress, level 85, Hell River of Flame next[/Highlight]
 
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I've seen the invisible shot no-move Abyss Knights before. I don't recall how I handled it but I would definitely vouch for the "no thanks" approach you took in this case. Yikes! 6 hours is a long time to play in one sitting.
 
The most important thing for the next session was done before I played it. I made room for my Edge bow. Swapped out the MF switch (Gull + Rhyme Bone Shield) for it, and I had been clever enough to save a full pack of arrows as well.

First monsters I fought coming down the stairs were Maw Fiends. All well and good, but didn't I also see some coloured shots but nobody approaching? Oh no, bugged Abyss Knights again! Third monster type was Stranglers. They crumble so fast in Blaze (5 seconds in double line) that the issue is more about freezing them in the fire before they flee out over the lava.

So, should I just avoid all the Abyss Knights then? That will be hard in the 'narrow' parts of terrain that is common on the River. But these are /p1 monsters, and the damage of my level 1+2 Fire Wall (backed by level 19+2 Mastery) looked quite decent, so I gave it a try. I started with a lone lightning shooter at the peninsula you can often teleport to straight S from the stairs. Hit it with a PMH arrow, then dodge shots and burn. Worked well. Next up, another loner, then a four-pack:

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One is already down. This actually works, but:

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So upset that I/she got their spelling wrong. :)

But there was good news. On the next duo (or was it a trio?) of these I killed, I noticed that when I had killed one, the next had already lost ~20% of its life, and I hadn't yet put any arrow into that one. Maybe it works without PMH? Yes, it did. I had to cast up towards 25 or so FWs, but it did overcome their healing. Even on this boss:

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(if you have trouble reading the text: it's Spectral Hit, Extra Strong, Aura Enchanted (Holy Freeze))

Thankfully, this pack at least had visible shots.

Hephasto:

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His last half of life took over 20 minutes to kill with Thunder Storm. This was the first time PMH was really needed. The other times were against every single Venom Lord in the Chaos Sanctuary. I looked up their lightning resist - it's 75%...

This was the perfect spot for slaying those that couldn't be frozen:

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TS has a longer range than their Infernos. Perfect.
So, can the Infector be done in with the same tactic? No, there was a slight problem:

View attachment 7517

Oh crap. Not sure if I can kill him at all. OK, I'll leave him here for now. I am not sure if the seal bosses must be killed, or if it works like in the Throne room, that you can lure them out instead. Do you know?

Cleared most of the Sanctuary. Although Doom Knights and Storm Casters were easy to kill (relatively, I still didn't take on more than one Knight at a time), Venom Lords were of course a drag and Oblivion Knights are hurty, particularly the Bone Spirits. I didn't have time to dodge those if I wanted to kill in a reasonable time - meaning, stay close enough for TS and also add Fire Walls as fast as possible. I did dodge most of the elemental shots. There was a Multishot boss Oblivion Knight (cold shooter) that was an absolute beast with his damage dealing. Not quite any NDEs against him, but close.

De Seis was Extra Fast + LE (making him lightning immune). He also swapped aura (he often does that if you get far enough away from him and he 'resets') to Holy Fire, which made him more hurtful. Sometimes bugged invisible shots from him. But the worst thing was that PMH did not seem to be working on him. I know I hit him twice, I both heard it and saw him turn green. Dammit, I even burned a couple of purples so I could make those shots!

I thought about luring out him from CS, too. Maybe popping the 5th seal will bring out Diablo then? But OK, gotta give the Infector a serious attempt first. I do have plenty of mana potions, over 700 arrows, a crafted Mesh Belt with 8% OW (that I had muled in) and a 23-pack of Rancid Gas Potions I picked up in the CS.

I hit with a PMH arrow now and then (you never know if it actually works for as long as needed here) but the bulk of the damage was done with level 1+2 Ice Blast!

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For the last half of his life, I waited for mana refills. For most of that, I still had arrows to burn during the mana refills. If an arrow scored a rare hit, I waited until the posion had run its course. No need to overwrite that...

After the 'arrows getting low' icon showed up, I hit once more, then saved the rest. Might need them vs. De Seis, who knows if it will work? For the last 6-7 mana bulbs of Ice Blasts, I just stood there and waited for the refills. I have no idea how many Ice Blast he ate, it must have been over a thousand...but he died!

So, what to do about De Seis? I wanted to have three columns of purples left for Diablo. Not that I thought that was really necessary, but still.

I tried this:

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Then teleports and walking to "herd" him into this corner. The problem was, it took too long, the flames only licked him for a short while.

Okay, lure him out of the CS. Once I got him to my Venom Lord Execution Block, I gave Fire Walls a go. I was safe from sparks and Holy Fire pulses. There was a corner obstacle that sometimes blocked his shots. The place was reasonably close to the River WP (about 8 teleports). Unless a monster resets, it usually won't regenerate unless you are there. I needed about 10 Jamella trips, but I got him with Fire Walls!

Diablo was an afterthought. Two red potions and one purple was all that was needed:

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Haha, jailing a Sorceress, what were you thinking...


[Highlight]Conqueror Fran the Blaze/TS Sorceress and Gwinni the Fire Rogue, level 86, Hell Harrogath[/Highlight]
 
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Well I decided to go ahead and start a Bowazon like I'd hinted at during one of my updates toward the end of Amodan_Crane's journey. Meet Annette, whom I've already played through all of normal difficulty, figuring to spare myself embarrassment if I died in normal like Amodan Sr did...

She is sticking with a rogue merc and will have a stout Valkyrie. She has very poor damage, wielding a Zephyr long war bow, but her rogue friend Diane does a bit better with an Edge long war bow and a +14 max damage helm. The Valkyrie of course at this point is quite the tank also, even though acts 1 through 3 were very challenging. I've never been able to guardian a bowazon and this is yet another try. I think my last attempt at a Strafe zon in a tourney died in hell act 1, several years ago.

Here is Diablo's drop. The CB on the Rattlecage and the 50% slow on the General's flail are both endgame worthy in my opinion. Very happy with this drop.
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After finishing cows but before venturing into the NM Blood Moor, here is the LCS. I need to work on lightning resist but I'm OK with the others.
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Along the way in normal, Annette found two Nagelrings (one with a perfect 30% MF), a Crushflange which I forgot to use against Diablo, duh, and I used a Bloodrise/Swordback Hold combo for much of the time when I needed to get some OW blood flowing. I still have the Swordback Hold and will probably keep it in the stash for help with physical immunes when the time comes. Normally I expect to have the General's flail (which I have upgraded to a knout and socketed with my normal socket reward; pickins were slim) and a Rhyme on switch. I have yet to find the 2 os bone shield for the Rhyme.

Annette, level 48 Bowazon, NM Rogue Camp
 
Yep, that's it! Really, I didn't think that her craptastic block speed would be such a hindrance as it is, and the Swordback Hold dropped early and I stuck with it. By the time I was in act V I realized that I needed to consult the blocking tables a bit more and a Shael in the Swordback Hold would only do a little bit of good when a cheap Rhyme would do better. So yeah I missed the boat.
 
Annette killed NM Andariel last night. No major finds in the act other than an Iceblink, which was handy on the torso of her merc Diane when facing Carvers and their shamen. We are struggling with kill speed because Annette's weapon is so bad (a Zephyr long war bow) but Diane's long war bow Edge seems to do a bit better in her hands, so the Valkyrie and her get probably 95% of the kills. I was able to find my first Amn rune toward the end of the act, so an upgraded Edge may be possible when I find a better 3 socket bow (the first Amn I cubed from Thuls and Orts). Charsi imbued an Ashwood bow after Andariel went down and it was better than the Zephyr but I haven't tested it out yet. I was also able to find a 2 socket bone shield so the Swordback Hold and it's 50% OW got replaced by a Rhyme and its 40% FBR and CBF. I stashed the SH for now but will probably bring it back out further down the line for topical usage.
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Annette, level 53 Bowazon, NM Lut Gholein
 
Is it too late to sign up. I assume not, so I am going to start an Amazon and not add any stats or skills until act 2. Should be interesting.
 
Nyeuro (Bowazon) has killed Andariel and moved on to Act 2. She was denied stats and skills in Act 1. So far "players 8" all the way.

She will develop her Valkyrie in time, but is majoring in cold bow skills for now. Specific assignment was: 8 in cold arrow, 4 in critical strike, and single points in inner sight, slow missiles, evade and dodge. The stat points went heavily into Vitality with just enough in stength and energy to keep alive (I hope). Dexterity will come in act II if I understand the rules.

The most exciting thing in act 1 was Andariel. Killed her with zero poison resistance by using a bow with two ruby chips. The best drop was a RAL from the countess. Ho-Hum, maybe act 2 will have more interesting action.
 
@Wolron: Welcome, and good luck!

(I recognize your nick. I can't really place you (hope you don't take offense!) but it was something with tournaments a long time ago. Did you host some? Or did we switch characters in one of skunk's 'switch characters after each act' tourneys? Or both?)




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

Short update from Fran. Not much grieveing now (exactly how it's meant to be, with Acceptance). Overseers and Quill Rats on the Foothills, with this one being the only real danger:

View attachment 7701

Imps, Maulers and Death Maulers on Highlands. Easy. And even easier on the Plateau, with Carver Shamans, Slingers and lightning mages. The mages were the toughest ones among those, I kid you not!

For the Carvers, Fran spammed GS and could freeze half a dozen easily. They have high cold resist, so it was about 50% chance of shattering (even with maximum spamming, they blinked from being blue between each GS hit). When a Carver was alone, I used Ice Blast, and that gave about 90% chance of shattering. When only Shamans remained in a spot, I teleported Gwinni there so she could clean up.

As for the Slingers, well:

View attachment 7702

This still baffles me, that the Act V guest Slingers can't hit anything except the character. It's been like this ever since the guest monsters were introduced in v1.10. Ok, there is the FE bug as well, but most other stuff in that patch seems pretty solidly tested. But this, did they even test it at all? Or did they think: "We like it this way"? :confused:

The two RoF-like bonus dungeons had their interesting moments. In Abaddon, we met the toughest archers in the game, those with innate cold and heavy poison damage. One boss, that I managed to face alone. Or rather, Gwinni faced it. She needed a few purples to win the gunfight.

Pit of Acheron had a triple elemental enchanted boss:

View attachment 7703

Fortunately, it was the less annoying/dangerous 'Type 1' succubus, the one that won't retreat, go sideways or cast Amplify Damage. Regular ones and minions aren't CI either.

Only one find of note lately: Wizardspike. Too high DEX required, even if I wanted to use it.
Considering we kill almost everything with over 200% MF, it's been a meager haul in this act.
Highest rune in the act is Shael.


[Highlight]Conqueror Fran the Blaze/TS Sorceress and Gwinni the Fire Rogue, level 86, Hell Crystalline Passage next[/Highlight]
 
jiansonz said:
@Wolron: Welcome, and good luck!

(I recognize your nick. I can't really place you (hope you don't take offense!) but it was something with tournaments a long time ago. Did you host some? Or did we switch characters in one of skunk's 'switch characters after each act' tourneys? Or both?)

Both. I hosted the HEPTAD and several other tournaments. As I recall, you were Cain to the rest of us mortals. Maybe you can help me with something. I am active in DII because my game computer got messed up and I could no longer play DIII. So, I got the laptop working and managed to get DII to work (barely). Now, the game computer is back in business and I want to continue my DII game. However, when I try to bring up DII on the old (recently fixed) computer, I get an exception report. I believe that I may simply need the patch that is available. I used it just a few days ago to get the laptop working, but now I forget how to find it. Can you give me a link to it? I reinstalled DII on this computer, so it is clean except for this patch.


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

Short update from Fran. Not much grieveing now (exactly how it's meant to be, with Acceptance). Overseers and Quill Rats on the Foothills, with this one being the only real danger:

View attachment 7701

Imps, Maulers and Death Maulers on Highlands. Easy. And even easier on the Plateau, with Carver Shamans, Slingers and lightning mages. The mages were the toughest ones among those, I kid you not!

For the Carvers, Fran spammed GS and could freeze half a dozen easily. They have high cold resist, so it was about 50% chance of shattering (even with maximum spamming, they blinked from being blue between each GS hit). When a Carver was alone, I used Ice Blast, and that gave about 90% chance of shattering. When only Shamans remained in a spot, I teleported Gwinni there so she could clean up.

As for the Slingers, well:

View attachment 7702

This still baffles me, that the Act V guest Slingers can't hit anything except the character. It's been like this ever since the guest monsters were introduced in v1.10. Ok, there is the FE bug as well, but most other stuff in that patch seems pretty solidly tested. But this, did they even test it at all? Or did they think: "We like it this way"? :confused:

The two RoF-like bonus dungeons had their interesting moments. In Abaddon, we met the toughest archers in the game, those with innate cold and heavy poison damage. One boss, that I managed to face alone. Or rather, Gwinni faced it. She needed a few purples to win the gunfight.

Pit of Acheron had a triple elemental enchanted boss:

View attachment 7703

Fortunately, it was the less annoying/dangerous 'Type 1' succubus, the one that won't retreat, go sideways or cast Amplify Damage. Regular ones and minions aren't CI either.

Only one find of note lately: Wizardspike. Too high DEX required, even if I wanted to use it.
Considering we kill almost everything with over 200% MF, it's been a meager haul in this act.
Highest rune in the act is Shael.


[Highlight]Conqueror Fran the Blaze/TS Sorceress and Gwinni the Fire Rogue, level 86, Hell Crystalline Passage next[/Highlight]
Click to expand...
 
Wolron said:
I am active in DII because my game computer got messed up and I could no longer play DIII. So, I got the laptop working and managed to get DII to work (barely). Now, the game computer is back in business and I want to continue my DII game. However, when I try to bring up DII on the old (recently fixed) computer, I get an exception report. I believe that I may simply need the patch that is available. I used it just a few days ago to get the laptop working, but now I forget how to find it. Can you give me a link to it? I reinstalled DII on this computer, so it is clean except for this patch.
Click to expand...

Here is downloadable v1.14 patch. (v1.14 is exactly the same as the latest v1.13 when it comes to Single Player).
 
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