A Set of Guardians (Sept) – Planning & Progress

[ffs]

@PhineasB Indeed... For cows I was leaning towards Javazon or Necro, but I too thought that Fissure might be a safer option with Oak.

I'm honestly surprised I haven't lost any of these characters and items yet. While that surely will happen at some point, in the meantime I figured I'll try to rebuild Guardians from this project into proper farming characters and enjoy the ride while it lasts.

The Amazon was turned back into a Javazon. After shopping 3/20 gloves for her, we visited the cow level to farm an Infinity base. Following two Threshers that rolled 1os in the cube, I settled for a CA base. Got a decent roll:



While I could now continue with Assassin and Druid, I'm either a little scared (Phoenix Strike Assassin) or looking for some gear (3os set weapon for Druid), so I'll keep them on pause for now.

Also still lacking two items each from the Griswold and Tal Rasha sets, so a little farming is in order anyway.

After making Infinity, we ran P8 Pindle for a while to get the Javazon into the 90s for amulet gambling and crafting. At some point I got bored of Pindle – surprise, surprise – and revisited the Necro, turning him into a Pit runner. I was happy to see runs are alright in terms of safety, taking things easy with a 75 FCR Stormshield setup. I also have a 2/20 FCR Necro circlet in HC which I played around with, and even 125 FCR setups worked OK (with Hoto + Stormshield). However, currently I prefer 75 FCR with more life, capped %DR and somewhat decent MF. At the moment he's using +5 PN White wand along with some FCR gear.

Here's some HC Pit Necro gameplay:

Notable drops for HC progress in general:

Spoiler

Sept update:

Class         Character          Build                 Status/level         Missing items
__________    __________         __________            __________           ____________________
Amazon        Niva               Magezon => Java       Guardian (91)        -
Assassin      Ayla               Phoenix Striker       A1 Hell (76)         -
Barb          Latro              WW => Trav WW         Guardian (90)        -
Druid         Rud                Flaming Mauler        A2 H (77)            -
Necro         Ognar              PN => Pit PN/CE       Guardian (90)        -
Paladin       Lowsir             Shocking Bear         A1 N (1)             Set weapon & shield
Sorc          Ahsa               FO/CL                 A1 N (1)             Set armor & amulet

 

[ffs]

While I could now continue with Assassin and Druid, I'm either a little scared (Phoenix Strike Assassin) or looking for some gear (3os set weapon for Druid), so I'll keep them on pause for now.

Or, you know, do the opposite. Now past the half way mark, Phoenix Strike Assassin done:



I figured I'd just get the two levels to equip Nat's set and try with Infinity. And boy what a difference that runeword makes for the build, it just drastically improves so many essential things for her... Nat's set helped for sure on the defensive side, but with Infinity added we basically went from fearing for our lives on P1 to feeling very comfortable on P5. Still kept it on P1 or P3 mostly just to be on the safe side. Hell was finished swiftly in one session this morning. I came to really like Phoenix Strike now!

I just followed @maxicek's PS guide pretty much, with leftover points sunk into DS.

Nat's helmet (unsocketed)
Nat's claw (unsocketed)
Nat's boots
Nat's armor (Ral, Ort, PRuby)
Bartuc's (unsocketed)
SoE 6/15/13
Dracul's Grasp
Ravenfroat
Rare leech/resist ring
Mara's (24@)

Merc: Infinity CA, Duriel's, Tal's helmet

Build: 20 PS, FoF, CoT, 14 DS, 1 Dragon Flight, BoS, Mind Blast & pre-reqs

Drops weren't too bad either:

Spoiler

Not sure yet what to do respec her to. Her #1 farming target where she's really a top-tier class is cows, but that's with Phoenix.. and making that runeword in HC is rather far down the list. I'd prefer at least one backup Enigma & Infinity, and Lo runes will at first be spent towards (hopefully) improving my terrible HC Grief rolls...

Anyhow: Leveling the Necro from 90 to 91 in the Pit got us a couple of nice drops, too. While I didn't find any of the missing set items yet, we picked up two Bers within a couple of hours of running. So we can afford losing one Infinity or Enigma now, which is comforting to know.

Spoiler

eth Tomby troll #4 for me (2os), still have yet to find a 3os eth one.

Updated table:

Class         Character          Build                 Status/level         Missing items
__________    __________         __________            __________           ____________________
Amazon        Niva               Magezon => Java       Guardian (91)        -
Assassin      Ayla               Phoenix Striker       Guardian (83)        -
Barb          Latro              WW => Trav WW         Guardian (90)        -
Druid         Rud                Flaming Mauler        A2 H (77)            -
Necro         Ognar              PN => Pit PN/CE       Guardian (91)        -
Paladin       Lowsir             Shocking Bear         A1 N (1)             Set weapon & shield
Sorc          Ahsa               FO/CL                 A1 N (1)             Set armor & amulet

 

[ffs]

Finished the Druid. So glad this is over.

First: If you haven't read this Flaming Mauler guide -- do it. Now.

Secondly: If you're thinking about playing this build with Aldur's set -- don't do it. Ever.

I'm not a big Druid fan generally, and let's just say this experience didn't exactly change my mind. After quickly getting to Hell with Fissure, he was parked for some time in A2 until I finally got the set weapon with 3os. After stuffing it with Shaels and got some decent attack rate as a result, we pushed on and things were okay for a while.

And by a while I mean A2 and A3. Actually even A2 was already annoying at times.

A4 was about the torture I had expected, and then some. Getting to Diablo took forever, the little physical damage from the set weapon at best tickled those swarms of FIs coming his way. Anyhow, eventually it was done.

A5 greeted us with only FI mobs spawning in Bloody Foothills. Actually all overground areas were teeming with FIs. We basically just cleared a straight path to the next area best we could.

However, luck was on his side for the remainder of A5. The underground areas were easy (no FIs), so were Ancients, WSK and Baal. There were a few of those Frenzy dudes who are super bugged in D2R, dealing tons of damage and potentially killing you instantly after getting hit just once. Shock Wave was a life saver here. Same for the Lister wave which was quite OK on P1, and Baal went down quickly as well.



HF forge was a disappointing Lum, and no drops of note otherwise either.

Bosses generally were easy, and of course FC made quick work of everything that wasn't fire immune. It's just that there are too many of those.

IIRC @PhineasB suggested going FC with Fury for FIs and in hindsight that might have been a better fit for the set, physical damage is terrible in any case but Fury at least hits more often. But I was too stubborn and never used Maul before, so I decided to just fight through the pain rather than respec.

Final gear and build:

Aldur's weapon (3x Shael)
Aldur's helmet (2x IAS jewel)
Aldur's armor (unsocketed)
Aldur's boots
Stormshield (unsocketed)
Mara's
BKWB
Raven
SoE
Bloodcraft CB gloves with some life and res

CtA/Lidless on switch

Inventory: 2x Shapeshifting skillers with life, Gheed's, SCs with life, dmg/AR

Merc: Infinity, Lionheart, Tal's helmet (also used Reaper's for a bit)

Build: 20 FC, Fissure, Volcano, 10 Firestorm, 1 Oak, pre-reqs, rest Werebear

Anyhow, glad I can cross this one off the list.

***

In the meantime I did start the Paladin as well last weekend, hammered our way to NM Baal and got a few levels there. Eventually I want to turn him into a smiter for HC torch farming, but I kinda want to beat the game with the set first.

So now that leaves Sorc and Pally, which will probably be the two strongest chars, so at last something to look forward to... But still missing items for both. Guess that leaves me no choice but to do some kind of MF'ing for now.

Table update:

Class        Character     Hell build          Status/level      Missing items      Current build
_________    __________    ________________    ______________    _______________    _______________________
Amazon       Niva          Magezon             Guardian (91)     -                  Javazon (Pindle, cows)
Assassin     Ayla          Phoenix Striker     Guardian (83)     -                  -
Barb         Latro         Whirlwind           Guardian (90)     -                  Whirlwind (Travincal)
Druid        Rud           Flaming Mauler      Guardian (81)     -                  -
Necro        Ognar         Poisonmancer        Guardian (92)     -                  PN/CE (Pit)
Paladin      Lowsir        Shocking Bear       A5 NM (75)        weapon & shield    -
Sorc         Ahsa          FO/CL               A1 N (1)          armor & amulet     -

 

[Pb_pal]

Great job! Flaming Maulers are quite cool in concept, but I agree with you that Aldur's set is just... not great (especially for this application).

Glad to see you got him through, congrats.

 

[PhineasB]

Glad to see the Druid completed safely and kudos on patience to push through. So is the lesson to listen to PhineasB on build options?

Good luck on farming the missing gear pieces!

 

[ffs]

Time to complain.

After completing the Druid and missing Tal Rasha and Griswold set items, I was kind of forced to turn to more serious MF'ing in hopes of finishing this sept some time soon.

Made a Beast, respec'ed the WW Trav Barb to Singer and started to roll Pit maps. It seems that when playing Singer I get cursed with the worst Pit map rolling luck. Whenever I managed to find a promising level 1 map, level 2 was just terrible, and vice-versa. I ran a number of "not great but OK" maps for a while, but still haven't found something I was happy with, so technically still rolling maps...

Not really finding what I'm looking for either, except for this last drop yesterday evening:



So something at least, now 3 items to go for this sept. I should also mention things started off nicely with an early eth Mang Song's, and there were a few decent finds here and there. But nothing super useful for this particular project and nothing that would be exciting for other reasons either (wouldn't Griffon's, Fathom, DWeb in HC ).

Screenshots:

Spoiler

 

[ffs]

Figured as long as I'm looking for the remaining set items, I'll just continue to report on drops in general.

One more set item obtained, although it got 3os unfortunately:



Still didn't manage to find a really good map, but settled for one that seems to average slightly below 8 bosses for now.

While things are mediocre on the map rolling and set item drops front, things have been pretty good otherwise.

Two very nice uniques in particular:



Better than the eth ones I have in SC... cold duration is average though at 25 frames, for those who wonder about such details.

50 MF War Traveler, only the 3rd pair I found in HC:



Other drops included various semi-are S&Us, but also numerous trolls with green Corona's (rather than Vortex Shields), a nice FCR/leech ring, a nice 2/20 Sin circlet and a Lo rune. I'm thinking about making Fortitude with it, as I'm mostly playing Singer Barb atm and Merc would benefit quite a bit. However, for now I'm OK with Treachery on the Merc, in the end it may just be spent towards another Grief roll at some point.

Spoiler

(Cranium Basher)

Class        Character     Hell build          Status/level      Missing items      Current build
_________    __________    ________________    ______________    _______________    _______________________
Amazon       Niva          Magezon             Guardian (91)     -                  Javazon (Pindle, Cows)
Assassin     Ayla          Phoenix Striker     Guardian (83)     -                  Phoenix Striker
Barb         Latro         Whirlwind           Guardian (92)     -                  Singer (Pit)
Druid        Rud           Flaming Mauler      Guardian (87)     -                  Fissure (Pindle, Cows)
Necro        Ognar         Poisonmancer        Guardian (92)     -                  PN/CE (Pit)
Paladin      Lowsir        Shocking Bear       A5 NM (75)        shield             Hammerdin
Sorc         Ahsa          FO/CL               A1 N (1)          amulet             -

 

[PhineasB]

An eth Reaper’s already? Congrats, but I also kind of, maybe, hate you

(I haven’t checked in a while, but recall that I’m in the 80s of Reaper’s found without eth in my current D2L restart. Need to double check that now.)

 

[ffs]

Heh, yeah eth Reaper's seem to be hard to find for me too. In SC I've only found two I think, with what feels like a similar number of non-eth ones as you... But hey, if memory serves you found two 3os eth Tomb Reavers, I'd rather have one of those.

 

[PhineasB]

Heh, yeah eth Reaper's seem to be hard to find for me too. In SC I've only found two I think, with what feels like a similar number of non-eth ones as you... But hey, if memory serves you found two 3os eth Tomb Reavers, I'd rather have one of those.

True, but the second eTomby was lower ED roll than the first, so doesn’t really count

 

[ffs]

Haven't played much recently, and mostly running P8 Pindle when having 10-20 minutes here or there. Just wanted to beef up some chars for future farming prowess, while maintaining reasonable drop odds.

Alas, still haven't found Tal's amulet or Griswold's shield, but some progress nonetheless:

Started the Sorc though and finished NM. Pretty easy playthrough with Static/Nova all the way, although one NDE against NM Meph was a very close call. After killing NM Baal I now respec'ed into Blizzballer (FB focus) and intend to run NM Andariel with her, in hopes of getting the set amulet as well as an additional SoJ or two so I can get an Annihilus in HC (currently only have one SoJ and like to keep it).

The reason for the change of plans to her hell build (FB/Blizz rather than CL hybrid) was this drop:



Which became part of this:



Yes, did that rather than having a "spare Enigma" or Fortitude which may seem more reasonable when just building up stashes in HC. But I gave it some thought and there are actually three characters I plan to play in HC in the future which all make use of this: AT FB/Blizzard Sorc, FB/DS Cow Trapper and Fissure Druid for cows and other targets.

The Sin was in the meantime turned into a Trapper and ran P8 Pindle until level 90, going with the aforementioend FB/DS build with max LS and synergies, so she can serve as a classical LS trapper as well. Haven't done any serious cow running with her yet, but did take her out for a spin with the Phoenix setup. Both Hoto and Beast options work nicely with the limited gear available to her.

Zon and Druid equally saw some Pindle action, the latter also benefitting from Phoenix of course. Having found 2 Ravenlores and a +5 Fissure pelt, he' scoming along nicely. The Zon also now finally has a Razortail, which took forever to find (and that's including the 97.5 levels my untwinked 99er HC Barb has in his rear view). They're now at lvl 93 and 87 respectively. The Druid may see some more playtime to get him into the 90s as well.

Having grown tired of rolling Pit maps with the Barb, he was respec'ed into a Berserker temporarily to run some P1 Pindle and the Pit, with the occasional Hell Andy run mixed in (apart from wanting to farm some essences for future respecs, I was again hoping for Tal's ammy and SoJ but no luck).

Gameplay with Berserk in the Pit is of course a bit more efficient, but also more dangerous, with some 3.3k life instead of 5.3k and being closer to the action. Not feeling entirely comfortable there atm with his current Berserk gear, rather sticking to Pindle and Andy for a while. Think I'll only get into serious Pit Berserker action once I have farmed Torch & Anni.

Drops
Another highlight came with a nicely rolled Andy's:



Other drops:

Spoiler

Class        Character     Hell build          Status/level      Missing items      Current build
_________    __________    ________________    ______________    _______________    _______________________
Amazon       Niva          Magezon             Guardian (93)     -                  Javazon
Assassin     Ayla          Phoenix Striker     Guardian (90)     -                  FB/DS/LS Trapper
Barb         Latro         Whirlwind           Guardian (93)     -                  Berserk
Druid        Rud           Flaming Mauler      Guardian (87)     -                  Fissure
Necro        Ognar         Poisonmancer        Guardian (92)     -                  PN/CE
Paladin      Lowsir        Shocking Bear       A5 NM (75)        shield             Hammerdin
Sorc         Ahsa          FO/CL               A5 NM (75)        amulet             FB/Blizzard

 

[ffs]

Finally:



Not sure how many NM Andy runs I did but it certainly took more than the statistical average. I was hoping to score an additional SoJ along the way, but no luck on that front.

Still happy though, the ammy was the last item that could (somewhat) reliably be target-farmed, before I'll turn my HC attention back to lvl 85 areas. The Sorc was then wrapped up quickly. The set is strong as is and a nice fit for her Blizzballer biuld. Otherwise she used Magefist, BKWB, an FCR ring, Spirit, 3 fire skillers and 1 cold skiller. Hell was easy, but yielded no drops of note (HF was Ko).



She'll now live in the AT, sticking with the FB/Blizz build. I'm a big fan running a Phoenix setup in AT with this build, but I don't have all the juicy stuff in HC yet to make it work really nicely (in particular lacking some nice craft/rare jewelry). So currently using a standard Tal Rasha 3-piece setup with Hoto/Spirit and Insight Merc.

Other drops:

Spoiler

So this leaves Paladin, and the search for the last set item with Griswold's Honor. I'm planning to host another MF/RF tournament in December and run with some of these HC chars. Hopefully that will finally deliver the shield. I really want to get around to farming torches, and need to finish the Pally to do that.

Class        Character     Hell build          Status/level      Missing items      Current build
_________    __________    ________________    ______________    _______________    _______________________
Amazon       Niva          Magezon             Guardian (93)     -                  Javazon
Assassin     Ayla          Phoenix Striker     Guardian (90)     -                  FB/DS/LS Trapper
Barb         Latro         Whirlwind           Guardian (93)     -                  Berserk
Druid        Rud           Flaming Mauler      Guardian (87)     -                  Fissure
Necro        Ognar         Poisonmancer        Guardian (92)     -                  PN/CE
Paladin      Lowsir        Shocking Bear       A5 NM (75)        shield             Hammerdin
Sorc         Ahsa          FB/Blizz            Guardian (84)     -                  FB/Blizzard

 

[ffs]

Been a while!

After spending most of this year's D2 time building and improving PvP characters in 1.14, when MFO came around I figured I'd get back to this project. So I respec'ed the Barb in this sept to a Pit Berserker and ran with him for MFO. Of course, the #1 wish list item was Griswold's Honor in order to finally progress this sept further and hopefully conclude it soon. As luck would have it, we indeed got it to drop:



While the Paladin was originally intended to be a Holy Shock bear build with Beast, the attack speed changes in D2R made that option way less appealing. So instead he will be played as a straight-forward Tesladin, with Zeal, Holy Shock + synergies and Infinity/HF merc.

After entering Hell and respec'ing, his current gear is this, with a couple of open sockets remaining as I wait to see how to best use them based on gameplay experience as we're questing through hell:

• Griswold's Valor (2x PRubies)
• Griswold's Heart (3x PRubies)
• Griswold's Honor (PRuby, PTopaz, one open socket)
• Griswold's Redemption (Eth rune, three open sockets)
• Mara's
• BKWB
• Ravenfrost
• Bloodfist
• Sandstorm Trek
• String of Ears
• Switch: +6 BO CtA/Spirit

Build:

• 20 Holy Shock
• 20 Resist Lightning
• 15 Salvation (next 5 points go here)
• 5 Holy shield
• 5 Zeal (remaining points will go here)
• 1 Vigor, pre-reqs

Merc (HF): Infinity, Tal's, Duriel's

The intended post-Guardian purpose of this Paladin is to become an Uber Tristram runner and I want to get around farming HC torches as soon as I can... So I'm planning to finish him very quickly, today or tomorrow if I can.

Assuming I don't kill him, I'll be reporting on his transformation and Uber Tristram ventures soon, hopefully.

Class        Character     Hell build          Status/level      Missing items      Current build
_________    __________    ________________    ______________    _______________    _______________________
Amazon       Niva          Magezon             Guardian (93)     -                  Javazon
Assassin     Ayla          Phoenix Striker     Guardian (90)     -                  FB/DS/LS Trapper
Barb         Latro         Whirlwind           Guardian (93)     -                  Berserk
Druid        Rud           Flaming Mauler      Guardian (87)     -                  Fissure
Necro        Ognar         Poisonmancer        Guardian (92)     -                  PN/CE
Paladin      Lowsir        Tesladin            A1 Hell  (76)     -                  Tesladin
Sorc         Ahsa          FB/Blizz            Guardian (84)     -                  FB/Blizzard

 

[ffs]

Alright, time to wrap it up. This sept was completed a couple of days ago.

Class        Character     Hell build          Status/level      Current build
_________    __________    ________________    ______________    _______________________
Amazon       Niva          Magezon             Guardian (93)     Javazon
Assassin     Ayla          Phoenix Striker     Guardian (90)     FB/DS/LS Trapper
Barb         Latro         Whirlwind           Guardian (94)     Berserk
Druid        Rud           Flaming Mauler      Guardian (90)     Fissure
Necro        Ognar         Poisonmancer        Guardian (92)     PN/CE
Paladin      Lowsir        Tesladin            Guardian (88)     FoH/Smite
Sorc         Ahsa          FB/Blizz            Guardian (90)     FB/Blizzard

The Tesladin was finished pretty uneventfully. I ended up using a couple of ED/max dmg jewels in the Caddy. Didn't want to commit properly with lightning facets as I don't have many of those in HC yet. As a result, broken LIs took a little long on higher player settings, so I kept it on P1 throughout Hell. The build was progressed as described in the post above. All in all smooth sailing, never got into any danger but also not completely wrecking everything, given the lack of -ELR for broken LIs.

Screenshots from the Hell playthrough:

Spoiler

HF was Um. The Caddy was of course fitting and even got a nice roll.

Uber Build
After making Guardian, we respec'ed to FoH/Smite. I was thinking about possible torch farming builds for a bit and sort of landed on the FoH/Smite approach... basically relying on @Nano confirming it should work well in HC. And indeed it does. FoH is great for key farming even on P7, clearing nicely and allowing me to hit ghost packs in Arcane Sanctuary. I am still building up some rune/charm wealth, so getting drops in AS is a nice element of those runs.

Straight-forward build: 20 pts into FoH, Holy Bolt, Fanaticism, Holy Shield, 1 pt Salvation/Cleansing/Vigor, rest into Smite.

Key farming (FoH focus):

Spoiler

Shako
Hoto
Spirit
Enigma
Arach
Magefist
WT
Raven
Dwarf
FCR amulet

CtA / Spirit switch

Inventory: Anni, otherwise only life SCs

Using FoH all the time except for focusing down Summoner with Smite. I still have many keys from running Nihlathak with my HC UT99er Barb, which means that so far I only had to farm Countess and Summoner with this build. But with Vipers being nerfed in D2R, I'd expect Nihl runs to be safe and similar to Summoner runs basically.

Ubers setup (Smite focus)

Spoiler

GFace Um
Grief PB
4x PD Sacred Rondache
Enigma for organs, Treachery pre-buff and Smoke for Ubers
Thundergod's
Dracul's
Gobline Toe
Raven
Dwarf
Mara's

Switch: CtA / Life Tap wand + second 4x PD shield

Inventory: Anni, otherwise only life SCs

I considered other options such as Fleshripper, Black, Verdungo's etc, and also swapped to Shaftstop after Mephisto for the first couple of runs. But I think I'll just stick with the above, seems to work nicely with minimal swapping.

After selling my only HC SoJ to get an Annihilus, we got around to farming torches, with the first 5 pictured below (Barb, Necro, Sorc, Druid, Paladin). Great rolls overall, I got quite lucky with these being the first couple of HC torches. Still I'll continue to farm some more.

Spoiler

Runs are fairly easy overall to be honest, except for one hiccup when I got swarmed with Diablo + Baal + minions + simultaneously getting stuck on some obstacle on the terrain. Initially I failed to notice my Smite could no loner reach the boss anymore and as I was hitting air, not leeching, life started going down quickly, forcing me to use 1-2 rejuvs. Going forward I better make sure to isolate them carefully, and fight them in open areas with no obstacles around to get stuck on.

My current mini-boss maps are pretty comfortable to run. Izzy and Lilith are mostly alone in their corners, usually without many monsters around. I use Enigma to get to them quickly and skip most of these areas. So despite Amp being a potential issue there, on my current maps it's rather easy to handle.

Recorded a run to show some gameplay:

Finally, been meaning to share what I believe is the final destination for the Barb, who served me well in MFO even with crap gear. Now with anni & torch and some build-related conclusions drawn from MFO runs, here's his improved state with 5.4k life now.

Spoiler

Build:

• 20 Berserk
• 20 BO
• 20 Howl
• 20 Find Potion
• 5 Find Item
• 13 Blade Mastery (former Sword Mastery)

Stats: ~50 Dex for PB, rest vitality

Stats:

• 5.4k life
• ~7.5k AR
• 624/500 MF
• 69% FI

Damage is much better than with my MFO setup, a lot more 1-shots or 2-shots. Still can be improved a little more, sometimes monsters are left with a sliver of health.

Gear is pretty much the same as during MFO so far:

• Shako (PTopaz)*
• Enigma
• Switch 1: Grief PB (30/366), Ali Baba 'IstIst'
• Switch 2: Suicide Branch 'Ist', Hoto
• TO gloves*
• TO belt*
• 50 MF WT
• HLW
• 25 MF Nagel
• 27 MF Nagel

* While I do have a Cham, I am holding on to it for now so I have not yet made the switch to Cham'ed Shako and Arach + Chancies/LoH. Will probably do that at some point, life pool is certainly big enough to drop a couple of hit points.

Inventory: Cube, Anni, Torch, Gheeds, otherwise just crap MF charms (mostly plain 6-7 MF, some 5 MF, a handful with useful secondary mods such as resists or AR)

With the sept project completed, future plans and ideas for these characters:

• Barb: Pit Berserker ofc.
• Paladin: He'll stick to farming Torches for a bit, then I want to try areas like Travincal/CS/AS with a pure FoH build. Should be super safe and reasonably fast.
• Necro: Pits/Cows with the typical PN/CE build, pretty much. I did a bunch of those runs and it's safe enough with Stormshield.
• Sorc: Try out new lvl 85 areas. I kinda want to play her with the new Obsession runeword, for more comfortable Sorc gameplay in HC. Then again I already have a Phoenix shield and some of those new areas are nicely suited for a fire build...
• Amazon, Assassin, Druid: Not sure yet, currently I have no specific targets in mind for those. Perhaps also some kind of higher player settings / new lvl 85 area running

 

[little birdy]

Nice resistance rolls on some of those torches! I should see if I can get my Paladin geared up to try to get some of those things...

I never used to be a big fan of the Paladin. Don't really enjoy playing a Hammerdin very much, for example. But I tried the FoHdin after 2.4 came out and I like playing that character a lot.

 

[ffs]

Go for it. I just used what I happened to already have in HC. Even more so in SC, you can run with total budget gear like Spirit/Spirit etc for the FoH part, and Black, CB crafts, Gobline Toe, GFace, 4x PD shields for the Smite part... all very common/easy to make.