A new tournament: "Make no bones about it"

Re: A new tournament: "Make no bones about it"

Minime steamed through acts II and III yesterday. Most of the time I played on /P5, except for the Durance level 3 and the two false tombs I went into, which were at /P3. Mostly because I wanted CE to actually help kill guys and keep moving in the extra areas. About the only tough area was right out the gate of Lut Gholein, where I ran into a double stacked boss pack (leapers and slingers) as well as a champion pack of slingers. I tried confuse because they were shredding the merc too fast, but that just brought monsters from everywhere so it was a fun, tough battle. No screenies since I am not worrying about that stuff much until I pass where Moe bit the dust. My combat MO is to have the spirit sword on the Amp and CE switch, and I made a Zephyr bow for extra FRW, and I use that as my Confuse switch. Those are really the only skills I use. When I am about to go into an area that may contain a bad stair trap (temples) I switch my amp curse to terror. Minime also found a teleport amulet which will help for later.

At the top of the set of stairs in the far oasis, a normal leaper dropped a Skin of the Vipermaji. A very poor specimen (23 res all, 9MDR) but way better than what I was using before, so I put it on immediately. I then went down to /P1 in the maggot lair because, well, I'm impatient in that dungeon for some reason. I found the summoner in the arcane sanctuary right off the bat and didn't bother to clear the rest. I tend to get myself in trouble with confuse in the areas with teleporters and switchbacks, so I decided against it. Duriel killed the merc PDQ and so I used the (now level 9) IG thorns to dispatch him. It took 8 healing trips to town but he died and I didn't.

Along the way I maxed out CE and started putting all points into Confuse. It is past 10 now, well on the way to 20, where the core build will be complete. Points past that may go into summon resist or fire golem, I still haven't decided yet.

I played act III mostly at /P5. The flayer areas were actually pretty fast, as the merc with an ethereal malice lochaber axe took the first couple of amped flayers down in just a few swipes, and CE nuked the rest of the screen with impunity. Several times the remaining monsters got the shellshocked look and just stood there waiting to die. Gloams in the marsh were also not impossible, even though my lightning resistance was pretty bad, about 40%. Confuse makes their shots random and unaimed, and hiding near trees made it easy to keep safe. No real danger there. I just had to wait until Alhizeer killed a couple before I started the explosions.

Travincal was good fun combat, as champion heirophants are always good opponents when the heal each other. Mephisto was played on /P3. Good thing I didn't go higher, as he was never dangerous with decrepify, but he just took a long time to bleed out. He dropped an ethereal brainhew, which is pretty worthless at this point, even for a Rusty.

After the end of the act, I tried cubing two damaged preserved heads to get good mods, as I've not seen one yet that improves my golem mastery, summon resist, IG, CE, or confuse. Very frustrating. I didn't want to wait until I ran into burning souls to get more resists, so I made a Rhyme (a shael dropped in the flayer jungle) out of a plain jane large shield. Not optimum, but the 52% base block percentage will entice me to try to get to 50% blocking, and it helped my resists tremendously and gave me CBF as well. Right now blocking is at 34%, so I need to pump dexterity for a long time yet.

I also used a sol to make an insight partizan for the merc. It was perhaps the worst insight I've yet seen, with terrible ED and AR rolls, but it was a damage increase over the malice by over double. I also made a malice war club and turned it into a new IG with 3718 HP (didn't lose the Rusty at all this weekend). I still have yet to find an Amn to make a Strength weapon for boss fights but so far decrepify is working well enough. I have two more malice weapons waiting in case the war club gets destroyed (Diablo) so I feel Minime is in OK shape now. He has a good circlet for hell, teleport, and skills nearing completion. Now I need to stay away from those fanatic doom knights!

[highlight]Minime, level 61 Golemancer, Pandemonium Fortress[/highlight]
 
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Re: A new tournament: "Make no bones about it"

OK update time since Minime has passed the point where Moe took his dirt nap.

The fight with Blood Raven in NM wasn't hard at all with two superfriends. At this point the merc didn't do much damage, but a nice 1-74 lightning damage circlet helped a lot. We took care of her slow-moving friends and cornered her until she went down. Piece of cake. For some reason she didn't do squat for damage, even though she targeted Minime almost exclusively once she was trapped.

Look at this amulet grailer I'd found in act I underground passage. I was pretty happy about that one. I've muled it off for protection purposes since I still have to build a HC sorc and that's a great start.

Andariel's drop was OK; the Head Striker might be an OK Rusty weapon, but I've stashed it all for now. If you remember, the ring was not a SoJ, nor a Nagelring, but simply a Manald Heal. I likely won't use it.

I took this screenshot mere moments after getting nailed by the burning dead archers in the bottom of the picture. They were the ones responsible for my NDE in the sewers. One full rejuv and it's fast-acting healing saved Minime.

Act III was a blur, and I didn't take any photos, though I did have opportunities given that there were nearly always a billion flayers confused on the screen. They went down pretty fast to CE, and the merc was far more powerful after equipping the insight partizan. Anyway, you've seen pictures of mass confusion before, so I will wait to present more.

Act IV took about two hours in total last night. Nothing was challenging save for a crazy 30 seconds in the city of the damned where I was panic running from monsters chasing me inside of one of those building complexes. I even opened one portal but had to abort trying to go through it because monsters stacked up so thickly that I couldn't click on the opening without attacking them. Then later I foolishly (out of sheer stupidity and forgetting how hot it had become) went through the portal and back into that mess. Eventually they all fell and it was on to the River of Flame. Along the way to there I did get a nice rune drop. That made me really happy, and helped alleviate the consecutive substandard HF drop. Moe got the same rune in his HF drop also. This was my 3rd of these so far.

In the Chaos Sanctuary, I took it down to /P3 (and kept it there for Diablo) to lessen the sting of IM. Confusing the normal monsters distracted the Oblivion Knights and they only got Alziheer twice. They also never killed the War Club Malice Rusty either, though they got close once. The damage on the war club is so low compared to his life that even a couple IM hits won't kill him. The seal bosses were handled with a little more care. Except for the Grand Vizier, who is just lame. I tried Lord De Seis second, and he was a pussycat. I had left several doom knight bodies on the ground all strung through the pathway to the seal and simply blew those up as the fanatic doom knights approached until they were all gone, and De Seis himself wasn't tough. Infector of Souls required a portal back and return from the RoF WP to stay comfortably safe.

Diablo took a while, as I still don't have an Amn for any CB on the merc. I don't have an Io for Black for myself or the Rusty either. So we did things the old fashioned way- healing pots and rejuv pots for the merc, return to town when the Rusty is low on life, and repeat. Decrepified, Diablo killed the merc about 5-6 times but never got Rusty, so I keep the golem a while longer. His drop.

Notice he dropped a balanced axe. It turned out to be ethereal but replenishing, and I noticed a neat game mechanic I'd not seen before. Look at the cost in the first screenie. See the cost in the second screenie has gone up by 4 gold pieces. I didn't realize that the price of throwing items was dictated by how many were in the stack. I wonder if that is also the case for non ethereals but I always thought that the selling price of a stack of plain javelins was 120 gp no matter how many were in the pile.

I reordered the characters in terms of level achieved because I'm just OCD like that.

Code: 
Make no bones about it
Forum Name    Character Name    Level    Waypoint/Location   Best Drop            

OldSoldier      Moe               65       RIP-NM Chaos Sanc Langer Briser
OldSoldier      Minime            64       NM Harrogath      Skin of Vipermaji
Merlin          Skellophobic      52       RIP-NM Pits       Rare Amulet
Serdash         SneezyBones       44       Crystal Passage   Sander's Paragon
Chaogasm        Stumpy_McStump    32       Act 4             Sander's Wand
sveinbjorn      Elric             22       Far Oasis         Tal Rune
Bali            DrGuillotin       16       Dark Woods        Ith Rune
DarkStarHero    Ironist           16       Inner Cloister    Rixot's Keen
TheReadMenace   Spineless_Toxin    6       Cold Plains       Chipped Sapphire

edit: I always forget the drops. I got another Venomgrip, the pieces from Diablo, and a Stormrider. That's an item I've not seen before, and it'd be an OK Rusty weapon but I'll keep it in my grail stash since I think any Malice will be far better in hell anyway. If it had fire resistance that'd be a different story.
 
Re: A new tournament: "Make no bones about it"

Minime has traveled far and wide since we last heard from him. Over the last week he's finished act V and moved into hell. But I get ahead of myself.

On the way to find Shenk he got a nice pair of boots to drop. Too bad Minime isn't strong enough to put them on. Shenk himself dropped a HoBL, which is my third for my last two tournament characters to get this far. Weird. But I'm not complaining. The game must really want me to finish that Templar one of these days.

Along the way I found a couple of really expensive pieces of necro gear. I have no clue why that is so pricey.

The Ancients proved very easy. I rerolled them twice to get rid of cursed mods, but once I got a roll without that, I steamrolled through them. Decrepified constantly, they were no match for Alziheer. Rusty stood there and looked ugly. WSK level 2 held some burning souls, fairly close to the enrance, but not as a stair trap. I've held off casting Confuse right when I walk into new areas, until I get some breathing room. It has definitely taken some of the chaos out of the progression lately. Of course in a panic I change that MO, but I'll get to that later. The rest of the WSK and Throne were not difficult. The throne held the amp casting witches, but confused they ended up killing each other. I took the waves on /P5 and /P1 (Lister) but I could have handled the last wave on /P3. I think that wave will be a challenge in hell (if I get that far).

Baal never moved from where we found him, and never cloned. He dropped pretty well too. I've never gotten a Cliffkiller before.

As per Minime's SOP, the portal to the cow level opened very near where the king spawned, so it was a quick kill.

At this point my goal for the character has been reached. Any further progress would be gravy in my mind. Conqueror Minime has exceeded my expectations for killing speed and survivability. Confuse is an incredible crowd control skill (probably not as good as dim vision but for the purposes of clumping enemies together for big CE bombs, a necessity with this tournament and character, it is unmatched). Not willing to rest on his laurels as a conqueror, Minime forged ahead into hell difficulty. It was here that his final playstyle came into being. See an enemy, cast Confuse, the occasional Attract, merc or IG puts an enemy down, amp the rest, and blammo, over and over again until all are down.

In the Crypt Minime found a Butcher's Pupil. In Tristram, he found the set Dusk Shroud. Minime ran the countess three times (the third time was dicey but we prevailed). The first looked like this. I've never seen the countess fail to drop a rune before, at least that I remember. Oh well, the second try was more successful, netting me an Amn rune (I now have three).

I consider the Andarial drop to be pretty good, because even though the Crushflange is a pretty useless item normally, it is a very cheap source of good Crushing Blow for a Rusty. To kill her I used Amp Damage and Rusty's thorns damage and a few trips to town, just like in NM. She killed Alziheer in mere seconds so that was the easiest way to do it. I keep the Crushflange in the stash and will use it once I get closer to the end and need CB on the golem (right now the OW from the last of my Malice Lochaber Axes works great as a source of degen). Also, the three Amns gives me a shot at making a Strength golem or Strength spear for the merc, which will help greatly against the ancients.

Moving along to act II,

The areas in the desert were easy and fun, as there is much wide open space for maneuver (I have 50% FRW when on the Zephyr switch) and Confused enemies come from everywhere to die. The maggot lair wasn't even hard, as I equipped the teleport amulet to speed things up a bit when I was having trouble getting the merc to help out. Once they put one beetle down, the rest fell to CE. I didn't even step foot into Coldworm's lair until I'd killed everything with about a dozen corpse bombs. Too easy. The toughest fight came in the Viper Temple level 2. It wasn't a stair trap but after I'd woken them all up, and they killed the merc with their charging, I'd portaled out to save the Rusty (and Minime). Upon coming back I ended up blind teleporting around trying to get to the altar (which was occupied with three vipers) but ended up taking a bunch of hits. I confused the whole level, which lessened the blows substantially, but I was in panic mode as I had three of those things adjacent to Minime. I ended up using 6 full rejuv potions (I had 8 in the belt ready to go) by the time the first viper was down and I could get some breathing room. It wasn't a calm collected use-a-rejuv-when-health-is-at-x% kind of a thing. It was more of a total keyboard jam on skills and potions and weapon switch until stuff started to die. I must have blocked an attack or two in there, which may have helped buy more time. Regardless, we moved on, and successfully at that. Sorry no screenies, I was in spaz mode.

A tactic I used to good effect in the harem and palace cellars is shown here. Minime would cast a larger-than-the-screen Confuse curse, the area would light up with archers shooting at each other, and then we'd move in, amp them all, and wait for the first one to go down and let loose volleys of corpse explosion. That skill kills things through walls and made this normally very tough area actually easier than usual.

On the first leg of the Arcane Sanctuary (wherein I used Confuse very sparingly) I found a rare unbreakable PI boss. Trusty Rusty's open wounds felled him in short order. The summoner was on the first wing I traveled so the area went fast. Confusing the beasties on the summoner's platform makes him into a tame deer and we dispatched him in moments.

Shortly after I found the portal to the Canyon of the Magi, we got the unique Wrist Sword Jade Talon. That's a grailer for me, and a pretty cool MA weapon (it has 46 res all on it, not too shabby). It was in the tombs that I started to run up against monsters that could kill Rusty: Gorebellies. Their Crushing Blow was very effective against Rusty, requiring frequent trips to town to heal him up. This shot shows the end of a multiple boss pack stack that combined the Gorebellies with Conviction Guardians. In most instances the Rusty's lightning and poison immunity are great assets, but convicted, lightning can still hurt him, although slowly enough that I can leave the area before his death.

Duriel was not difficult, and he dropped the unique pavise Gerke's Sanctuary. It is ethereal but has 137 durability so would be usable for a long time.

On to act III. Here is a shot in the flayer jungle of a bunch of aptly named monsters. Once Alziheer got a couple down (and they didn't shatter upon death, which does slow me down sometimes) the rest was easy. The whole group in this picture was dead five seconds later, including the stragglers that ran away after the first explosion.

Witch Doctor Endugu is one of my favorite monsters. He always drops something nice, possibly because he drops twice and the merc, with his 119% MF, usually gets both kills. Yep, I'm still traveling with nearly max MF on the merc. I sacrificed some MF on the armor in order to max out his lightning resist, but every other slot is a Ptopaz (3 in helm, 1 in armor, 23% on weapon). The Corpsemourn isn't exactly useful to my character but cool nonetheless.

The Kurast Bazaar temples yielded two stair traps, but we overcame both and received a Hwanin's bill and some other goodies. The temple with the book had a stair trap which I broke free of using terror and then amped the beasties for quicker dispatching. My worst foe in the entire game (the dumb bat in the sewers who's name escapes me right now - edit: Icehawk Riftwing) dropped two nice rares, including a decapitator of quickness, but I sold them because the Malice mods and CB of Crushflange are far better for a Rusty.

Durance of Hate was not difficult (except for Gorebellies, which took Rusty's 6300+ HP in a hurry), and we found the WP easily enough. The council was far more tedious than anything else, requiring several trips to resurrect the merc. Like a plague, eventually I wiped them all out, without using Confuse for fear of what happened to Moe (i.e. waking up Meph while Bremm was still alive). I resurrected the merc to try and get the last shot on Meph, but he took a swipe at the Rusty and killed himself. Must be Meph doesn't have any MF himself, because his drop stunk, big time. Minime had about 60-70% MF at that time.

[highlight]Conqueror Minime, level 79 Golemancer, Pandemonium Fortress[/highlight]
 
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Re: A new tournament: "Make no bones about it"

Hey oldsoldier, what are Minime's skills at as of right now? And by the way, good process and as always good read.
 
Re: A new tournament: "Make no bones about it"

bladejj, I guess I should have mentioned that. I usually do the gear and skills/stats thing when I hit hell difficulty, but I forgot. This thread doesn't get much action so I figured it was more of a personal keep track of my character's status type of thread, perhaps similar to Butzull's Sept thread which has popped up now and again.

Skills are as follows:
P&B:
Teeth 1
Corpse Explosion 20

Curses:
Amp Damage 1
Terror 1
Weaken 1
Terror 1
Decrepify 1
Dim Vision 1
Confuse 20
Attract 1

Summoning:
Clay Golem 1
Blood Golem 1
Iron Golem 1
Fire Golem 1
Golem Mastery 20
Summon Resist 3

I have 14 spare points right now. I'll spend them on either FG or SR but he's doing well enough now to save them and spend them on style points. Besides, a measly few percentage fire resist or a bit more damage is very incremental, given that I have +summon skills to use starting each session. Specifically a +3 summons wand, +3 IG necro head, +2 summons circlet, +2 summons amulet. That gives the golem over 6300 HP, which is plenty for most circumstances. I have enough nice socketables and uniques saved up to keep Rusty going and effective for a long long time.

Minime's equipment is pretty straightforward: Spirit long sword, +1 curses and 14 res all circlet, crafted amulet with 12 res all, Rhyme shield, skin of Vipermaji armor, 10 res all ring, and rare belt/gloves/boots/ring round out the equipment. He fills out his resistances to max with charms, so he's fairly safe. He also topped 800 HP and 50% block.

Thanks for the well wishes; I thought I was by myself for a bit.
 
Re: A new tournament: "Make no bones about it"

In case anyone caught it, I don't have two points in Terror, but I do have the right to say that Minime defeated Diablo. Over the last couple of nights he steamrolled through Act IV Hell and now scares the bajebus out of the simple townsfolk of Harrogath. Let's examine his journey so far.

Nearly right out the gate of the Pandemonium Fortress, he ran up against quite a few monsters. It was a frantic Amp Damage and Corpse Explosion fest to get them all down before they killed the merc. I fed him a red through this as well to help out. It's funny to me how during all this tough combat and he's getting slammed around by demons of all nature that I can feed him a potion and he calmly replies "Thanks!" as if I'd handed him $10 to go to the movies. As usual, Confuse brought enemies from several screens away and clumped them for easy disposal, a tactic I used again in the Chaos Sanctuary.

All in all the Outer Steppes were fairly easy. The Plains of Despair held Burning Souls, with which I decided against using Dim Vision and stayed with Confuse. With 75% LR (with the Rhyme/Spirit switch active) I didn't have much to fear. A couple bolts did hit me when I was on the Zephyr (speed) switch and those hurt to the tune of about 300 or so HP each, but Minime has around 900 HP now so a red potion and switching back to the Rhyme solved any problems. I did encounter another unbreakable PI boss soul, but the cold damage from the merc killed him pretty quickly. This shot shows how disjointed enemy attacks get when confused, and surprisingly even the hag worms dealt quite a bit of damage to their elders when amped and exploded. Since they were spewed with great alacrity, it made those battles very one sided. In fact, it was so easy that Izual died without a single strike from my friends. It amazed me that he could be killed so quickly. He came running when I confused a group of the hag beasts; they spit out some younguns, I amped the whole crew, and casted CE about 8 to 10 times, and Izual died, just like that. It was easier than a sorceress.

City of the Damned held easy monsters, including your standard Abyss Knights, Corpse Eaters, and those terribly easy shock bats. Bosses, which are about the only thing that even slows us down now, were even couped up inside a building. You can see two of them here. I dispatched them easily enough by going around to the entrance, confusing the minions to occupy the bosses and killing them coming out the door one or two at a time. Inside one of the terrain features in the City of the Damned, I got another Elite Unique, a grailer for me. Too bad Minime isn't strong enough to use it; that arctic blast might have come in handy and it would nicely fit the theme of the tournament. I don't want to make a Rusty out of it either as it doesn't have Crushing Blow or Open Wounds on it, my favorite two Rusty mods.

By the time I found that sword I was about out of monsters to kill until the River of Flame, so I decided to get to the RoF WP and see what Mephisto's soulstone would yield at the hellforge. After killing Hephasto (he got the merc in seconds but killed himself on Rusty's thorns, which is a common theme with melee superunique bosses) I smashed the soulstone to reveal an Io rune. Normally I don't mind what I get as long as its useful, but come on. In all my HC character experience (all in tourneys) I have gotten 8 NM hellforge drops and 5 Hell hellforge drops. The NM drops have been Um, Lum, Lum, Lem, Lem, Sol, Sol, and Sol. That's an average (from Sol to Um, which is the range of NM droppable runes) of about 6 on a scale of 1 to 11, or right at Ko. The 5 Hell HF drops have been Lum, Gul, Io, Hel, and Io. That's an average (from Hel to Gul, which is the range of Hell droppable runes) of a little less than 4 on a scale of 1 to 11, or right at Ko. Take out the Gul that Saladshooter got and my average is an Io, or 2 of 11. I'm getting shafted here! Oh well, Minime has all he needs right now anyway. And yes I realize my sample size is small. /rant

Clearing the Chaos Sanctuary was pretty straightforward. Confuse-scout until the screen lights up with infernos and curses flying all over the place, and move forward and engage. If things get too hot, step back and pull the leash on my friends. The hardest part was getting there, as urdars were in the RoF and they pounded the Rusty a lot. They killed him and I didn't have an OW or CB backup. Stupid me. I ended up drawing monsters en masse from a new area back to a place where I'd slaughtered a bunch before, amping them and blowing them up. In this picture, I show how I led Infector back to the same area where I'd killed dozens before him. I went back to town once and most of the bodies disappeared so it was a canalization issue at this point. I kept them decrepified and they went down easily enough. Grand Vizier was a joke as usual, and De Seis did kill both Alziheer and Rusty in fairly short order but I ran past his crew and out into the open and got them after rebuilding my three man army (I made the Rusty out of a paladin shield with rubies in it to make him stout against Diablo. He didn't do any damage though, sadness).

Diablo was a pain in the butt. He took about 10 minutes and a ton of money, and I blame this on my lack of crushing blow. What a dummie. I have three Amn runes (and an Io!) too. The crushflange died somewhere in the act, I can't remember where. The gist of the fight with Diablo was to cast Decrepify on him, feed the merc potions until Diablo used his firestorm attack, which nearly always killed him, and wait. It was slow, slow, slow. Diablo almost always completely ignored the Golem, which sucked. I even started using a Gumby for even more slowing, which helped to keep the merc alive. Finally we got him (well, the merc did, and so we had over 200% MF to get the kill) and he dropped pretty well under the circumstances. He must have known I needed crushing blow. The IK Maul has perfect 40% CB and I have one single 20% FR jewel that I can throw in it, to push his fire resist into the 80s. I think I'll have that handy for the fight against Baal and his minions, and possibly against the Ancients. I haven't devised my strategy for them yet.

14 acts down, 1 to go.

[highlight]Conqueror Minime, Level 80 Golemancer, Harrogath[/highlight]

edit: I forgot, I also got a lightning skiller in the CS.
 
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Re: A new tournament: "Make no bones about it"

Great updates, OS. Nice screens too. :thumbsup:
I remember making an novelty IK golem once, but he only lasted a few minutes. Confuse looks like a great skill, but look out for some of those Act 5 hell champion packs. What happens if some champ frenzytaurs run into a mob of confused monsters? Will they run through them absorbing hits until they get to your team? Or will they fight any monsters that target them?

OldSoldier said:
Along the way I found a couple of really expensive pieces of necro gear. I have no clue why that is so pricey.
Click to expand...
Anytime you find a superior necro head (or druid pelt) with some high-level staffmods, check the sale value. You will find occasional pieces above 1 million. Very rarely 3-4 million or more. I recall an RTB post about an older version of D2, in which it was theoretically possible to flip the NPC vending sysyem, by selling an item of incredibly high value (15 mil+ maybe??). The screen would display a negative gold buyback value (i.e. you got paid to buy the item) :cool:



 
Re: A new tournament: "Make no bones about it"

Thanks IW. Confuse is sometimes more effective than others; in some instances in act V I have been using Confuse in combination with Decrepify. In the Crystalline Passage I faced amp witches, claw vipers and lightning horrors, who all shoot things and tend to run through a merc really quickly. Every time I hit a boss pack I switched to decrepify, and it helped immensely. When I run into Frenzytaur champions, decrepify will be my best weapon. I haven't ever really gotten the hang of attract, so I rarely use it. Confuse isn't always completely effective, even at level 24, but it does cover the entire screen.

I was surprised my necro head was expensive because that staffmod isn't a very high one. I understand that yours was pricey because of revives, summon resist, etc. BTW, yikes, 12M?

Anyway, Minime has made it to the Crystalline Passage WP and saved Anya. Killing slowed greatly between Frigid Highlands and the Arreat Plateau WP because I wanted to equip an ogre axe malice for the merc and needed 18 strength to equip it; I dug through ATMA and found face of horror and equipped that. What a mistake; the flee overrode curses, caused the battlefield to become as non-linear as possible, and generally caused immense trouble. As soon as I could find the WP, which is always a long slog from one to the next, I stopped and put a 3os Breast Plate with Amethyst to replace that helm. I equipped that and Iratha's Coil which solved all problems. After that things were much smoother.

Nothing of note dropped, except some threshers. Unfortunately they dropped after I spent the reward quest to socket a colossus voulge, which is a heavy strength requirement to equip. So the merc is one level from being able to wear it, unless I swap out the coil for something else with more strength (just not that mask of horror). At that point he'll have high damage and be able to wield either an Insight Colossus Voulge or a Strength Hyperion Spear, and the IG will be either a malice or the IK Maul. I'm glad I haven't made it yet though because Rusty died 4 times today.

[highlight]Conqueror Minime, level 81 Golemancer, Crystalline Passage[/highlight]
 
Re: A new tournament: "Make no bones about it"

Merlin, I want to thank you for causing me to spend a couple of weeks of computer time obsessing about this character. Ever since Moe went down it really bothered me and I wondered if he could do it.

I started off the session with trying to get to the Glacial Trail. Along the way I got another elite unique with a cold theme, which is obviously very fitting for this tournament. I felt justified grabbing so many good items because it seems like evey area I was in spawned several boss packs stacked on top of one another. Often I didn't even see what they were or hover on their name to see the mods on the boss, because I'd start picking off bad guys at the periphery and blowing them up. There were two bosses here at the entrance to the frozen tundra, four here at the beginning of the WSK, four at the WSK 2 level, and an amazing four more at the final WSK level. But I get ahead of myself...

Right near the start I got two really sweet jewels: a 33% ED ruby jewel, and this. My first perfect ruby jewel. Nihlathak's levels were easy, due to their being flayers involved. They blow up so nicely. I don't recall being happy to see those quick moving little buggers very often, but I smiled when I saw them bunching up around ole Rusty (who was at this point a Strength Hyperion Spear. He stayed the whole time and I never had to use the perfect IK Maul.

IW, you asked me about how I'd deal with frenzytaurs. Here is a good shot of how it went down. Initially I confused them. They still moved toward the Rusty and Alziheer, so I decrepified them. Even frenzied up, they were manageable with reds to the merc. Holy Freeze and Decrepify are quite the winning combo. Two or three had to go down before I could start the corpse exploding because they were shattering, but they went down fast enough to keep it interesting.

I really fretted about the Ancients, mostly because I remember reading about the efforts of folks in the Golemancer tournament. So, I made sure to have a Malice Ogre Axe as well as the Strength IG and a Strength Ogre Axe (it was ethereal and kicked butt). I kept 8 purples and 4 each reds and blues in the belt, and bought two crappy war swords as extra IG fodder in case. I spawned them once, they went through the merc pretty quickly, so I tried again. See the screenshots for my second try.

I spawned them and immediately ran upper right. They all followed, so I used my teleport amulet to get lower right, and only two followed, Korlic and Talic. With 25% CB on the merc and rusty, these guys went down really fast. They stayed decrepified obviously. Extra strong Talic really hurt himself on Rusty's thorns (315% returned) as well. Finally Madawc decided he'd have a spin against the three of us, but even though he tried very hard to ignore everyone but Minime, he failed.

You've already seen some of the shots in the WSK, but except for the gloams on level 2, it was pretty simple. We ran up against this nice Venm Lord pack in the Throne, and that was pretty much it. I decrepified Lister and company, and took them 4 at a time. Baal died quickly due to CB and dropped Ripsaw and Arcanna's wand, and just like the other levels, the cow king was a stone's throw from the red portal. He dropped Haemosu's Adamant, and I was amazed at how fast a bunch of cows went down. I put on a +2 P&B amulet to make the radius 10.6 yards. It was pretty ridiculous.

I'll post his final gear and stats in the guardian thread, but except for those crappy rune drops at the HF, he was nicely gifted along the way. I compiled the list from the stuff in ATMA and it kept going and going, so I'm happy.

[highlight]Guardian Minime, level 83 Golemancer[/highlight]
 
Re: A new tournament: "Make no bones about it"

Wow, simply amazing. Good job on the Guardian and I look forward to reading his thread :thumbsup:
 
Re: A new tournament: "Make no bones about it"

Oops, I don't mean to bump this thread, but I just noticed I messed up two screenshots in my last post. Here are the correct ones.

WSK1.
WSK3.

OS
 
Re: A new tournament: "Make no bones about it"

Terrific read and a terrific job Old. I have given Diablo a bit of a rest as of late (maionly due to my incompetence, I keep dying of with my HC builds, and starting all over with full clears gets old. So very old).

I will see if I have it in me to spend some more time with the necro :P
 
Re: A new tournament: "Make no bones about it"

Hmm, really don't need a project going, but since i read that this tournament is in the "still going and signup" category, ill take it on (also got inspired by OS progress). First tournament, first SP char. Seems about right, doesn't it?

The hypochondriac (or is he?) necromancer Anaphylaxis is joining. Going for full clears @ p8 (at least for now). Daggermancer with clay golem and AI curses. Will decide on CE later.

Update when andy is done (tonight probably).

edit: hmm.. anyone still playing?
edit2: ahh reread the rules, i guess ill max CE then.
 
Re: A new tournament: "Make no bones about it"

Hello iomanip. And welcome!

It's great coincidence really, since I informed the moderator that this toruney was wrongly placed in the closed tournaments section. This was rectified this afternoon :P At the moment, no one is playing, allthough I am commited to giving it another go with a necromancer.

Oh, by the by, you may opt for Posion Explosion instead of Corpse Explosion, if you so desire. But one of the two should be maxed (or both, if you want PE for the synergies)
 
Re: A new tournament: "Make no bones about it"

Allright, so the hopefully long journey begins. The goal with this project is to get a feel for single player, and also develop some strategies for untwinked single pass HC tournaments. I will mainly try to get the MF as high as I can, and then take it from there..

Anaphylaxis started off holding his promise. First step: /players 8 (first time in my D2 career, which have lasted for quite a while now). Killed all the little beasts in blood moor and finished den of evil. My first gem drop was a chipped sapphire, which was just fine. Socketed a dagger (which deals cold dmg) which serves as my main weapon for now. Poison dagger is really fun, and i can 1-shot most monsters, given some time. On switch i use javelins of frost (+1 cold dmg).

At lvl 6 Anaphylaxis first got some Epinephrine (the clay golem) to counteract my screwed up genetics, come on, who is really allergic to bones? Actually, it seems Anaphylaxis really is, i had a close encounter with a skeleton in cold plains, and by mistake he stabbed him. Momentarily his heartrate went through the roof, his blood-pressure sank like a stone and he felt his wind-pipe closing... Won't do that mistake again, no sir! Anywise, with Epinephrine always close, Anaphylaxis' journey took a pleasant turn! :thumbsup:

Progress wise stony field, underground passage and dark wood were cleared with the help of his newly found comrade, the rouge Aliza, who does most of the killing. It seems as if Anaphylaxis is a hypochondriac, he refuses to go near anything:rolleyes: Aliza is currently using a Gheed-shopped long bow with a ch sapphire, a ruby and an emerald in it.

Thats as far as i had time to get tonight, i thought id get to and past andy but well well. Dropwise nothing to really cool yet. Totally 4 chipped topazes that currently resides in my body armor and hat. I found a wand with +1 clay golem that i have in inv for "pre-buffing" (not really as much buffing as i would like, but at least its "pre").

Anaphylaxis, lvl 15 together with Epinephrine the clay golem and Aliza, the cold rouge

current magic find: 36%


peace!




edit: oh yeah, Merlin, can i rerun any area twice? Id really like to get some more exp, both for myself and for Anaphylaxis, before dying.. And: am I forced to max CE/PE ASAP, or is 1 point sufficient for the time being?
 
Re: A new tournament: "Make no bones about it"

A suggestion for you regarding the magic find, is to read the stickies, and look for the guide written by Jiansonz about Magic find in the early game. It's absolutely fabulous.

Good progress! And p8 helps a bundle, as far as XP and item find goes. Oh, it's a rogue, not a rouge! :P

Yes, you can rerun any area twice. As far as the CE/PE goes, I haven't written clear guidelines on purpose. Forcing you to max it immediately pretty much stunts the progress of the necro, which is not what I was aiming for. However, maxing it out once you reach Hell difficulty or something (lvl 60+) isn't exactly in the spirit of the tourney. Tell you what, max your main attack skill, and pour spare points in one of the two explosions. Then max it out as soon as you can.

A few suggestions : PD is a lot of fun, but necro's are rather frail, and PD deals damage over time, so your opponents can hit you before they die. So make sure you have a GOOD crowd control curse around (Dim Vision, Attract or Confusion) and use it wisely.

I'd shop for a wand with + to CG on it, and, if you don't mind frequent weapon switching, a curse as well (such as amp damage or DV). Or go for the bow, and deal death from a distance (at least for a while).
 
Re: A new tournament: "Make no bones about it"

Hrrm... i actually have played this game before you know..:embarassed: Ill go dim vision with 1 pt Amp for targeted monster. Actually, im thinking of doing a rebuild, not so sure about the poision stuff, takes quite a lot of skills points..:scratch:

update tonight

peace!
 
Last edited:
Re: A new tournament: "Make no bones about it"

Oi. Sorry, didn't mean to imply you had not. I played a Daggermancer before in this tourney, and your build brings back memories...

And those poison points aren't all that bad. 60 total, leaves plenty left for other stuff.
 
Update

Since yeasterday, i have been experimenting with the different skills Anaphylaxis have learned. Dim vision will be his main weapon against the forces of evil, its just so great! It seems confuse is also popular around here, but i like dim vision better due to the fact that it can be overridden by other curses. As of now, my strategy consists of making everything blind, and selectively amp the dude getting hit by the merc. Not the fastest perhaps, but working nonetheless. When the time comes, selective use of attract will be thrown into the mix as well.

My main goal was to reach 100% mf in ACT I, which i eventually did. After Jail lvl 1 when my 6th topaz fell, Aliza did all the killings. The catacombs inhabitants was generous, and Andariel, queen B by reputation, was slain with 118%mf. Dropped... an emerald and three rare long bows :shocked:. I wasnt too dissapointed. Greyform dropped (actually never found this before, tend to ignore mf at lower lvls when trading is available). :thumbsup:

In the beginning of ACT II, Aliza got replaced the PRAYER DUDE. Anaphylaxis didn't have anything against her, but as it became warmer closer to the desert, he finally got tired of her sub-par intellect (in battle, she had the habit of running back and forth..). PRAYER DUDE is currently wielding a sapphire'd brandistock till i can find him another source of cold dmg. The speed is ok for now.


Anaphylaxis, lvl 22 together with Epinephrine the clay golem and PRAYER DUDE, the desert warrior

current magic find: 128 %


peace!


hmm... rogue/rouge.. rouge is make-up, right?
 
Update

Durial has been slain! Anaphylaxis, Epinephrine and PRAYER DUDE are happy to report a smooth (but slow) progress through Act II. As in Act I, I let the merc get all kills. This is both due to the higher mf%, but also the fact that there isn't a lot Anaphylaxis can do on his own.

The gear have improved throughout the act, and a Epinephrine is now pre-buffed at skill level 7 (+3 wand +3 head) with 4 in golem mastery. 1 point went to summon resist, and most curses now have one point. Dim vision was used frequently in the tombs, espicially useful against Unravellers :thumbsup:

The fight with Duriel was as easy as anything, Epinephrine pounded the foul beast with his moldy fists, rendering him slow. Decreptify was cast from afar, and PRAYER DUDE stabbed away. The drop was actually pretty nice! 19 % (oh well) Nagel Ring. Better than my previous 12% at least.

I've been shopping circlets like crazy, but no banana. The closest i got was a 17% mf +52 mana, which i decided to use (mana has been a problem with CE, as always).


Anaphylaxis, lvl 27 together with Epinephrine the clay golem and PRAYER DUDE, the desert warrior, resting in Kurast Docks

current magic find: 213%



peace!
 
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