All Alone Tournament III

[Insane Wayne]

kept the Blackhorn's. The other mods are nice too, I wonder if the slows enemies is enough to affect baal?

It's an excellent mask, one that I hope all my characters find. But it's doubtful that by itself it will restrict Baal much. Without Decrep/HF, I think you want about 50% slowing, and a little sustained cold damage, to render Baal totally harmless. Nonetheless, Blackhorn's 20% slowing is definitely useful against all difficult monsters.

When I had replaced the javs with the Jade Tan Do, and got poisoned, I lost about 50 life before the poison timer ran out. Nice!

How timely! I remember finding a Jade while playing a tournament barb, and holding it in one hand, like a blockless shield, while using Concentrate with his other hand (a big, slow, hurty war hammer). As a result, the war hammer swung much faster due to weapon speed averaging, and I got the Jade's passive CBF/poison immunity. Useful combo until I needed a real shield later in the game.

Conqueror Evangelina...

Solid performance, great write-up, and an outstanding collection of +life suffixes on your gear/charms! :thumbsup:

 

[Elendoras]

First of all, hello everyone (yay first post :grin: )

Wow, look at everyone breaking Hell with these restrictions, so some congrats are in order.

With that out of the way, i thought this tourney would be a nice way to get back into d2 after a long time. After starting to read these All Alone topics i made a test character to see how i would cope with the restrictions while at the same time trying to get used to the game again. They have brought a lot of fun into my game.

/end classic "nice game mode!" speech

And without further ado, i present "TheBarbWhoCould" (only a small "fallen" in a tournament of OKs at the moment :tongue: ). I know it won't be the easiest character for this challenge (no minions to tank for him, equipment dependent etc.) but hopefully i will manage;and if not, hopefully it will be lots'o'fun. The original concept is to make him somewhat a variant of the concentration barb. We'll see how he fares.

"But now, we turn our eyes to the Rogue Camp, where our adventures begin. We see the brave and resourceful rogues guarding the camp, the mighty priestess Akara, the talented blacksmith Charsi, cunning trader Gheed and...what this..can it be, yes..the one,the only, the bringer of light :soapbox: yes ladies and gentlemen, it's the hen. Oh yea, there is that weird dude who smells bad, that arrived a few days ago too. He said he wanted to rid the world of evil or something like that.

So much for the big entrance. Seeing that he wasn't exactly the star attraction in the village he decided he doesn't need them, at least for the moment, so he set foot into the blood moor and never looked back. He will show them!"

So, having nothing more than a rusty axe and buckler i set out against diablo's minions. Almost everything went smoothly, although i remembered how much i hate CE rogue archer bosses and rogue archer champ groups (high block and "shout" really helped against the champ group, even though i would get chilled on a regular basis by the ghostly ). Lots of howls and taunts later i reached and cleared the dark wood at level 14 ( the end of the journey for today).

Weapons are really going to be a problem at least for the time being. I went through 3 scepters (yay for high durability though) and 2 axes; but no other part of my equipment broke...ever :shocked: . (not even the 1/3 dur. Cracked sash i used until the entrance in the underground passage)

Had no noteworthy rares or S/U yet, hopefully i'll at least get a self repairing weapon soon since carrying 3 spare weapons that brake after half an area isn't that efficient.

[highlight]Alive Characters[/highlight]  
[b][u]Forum Name      Character       Build       Class       LVL   ACT         WP      [/u][/b]  
OldSoldier      Princess_Diana  MA/LF       Amazon      75  A2 Hell  Lut Gholein
Insane Wayne    Asteria         CS          Amazon      74  A1 Hell  Rogue Camp
jiansonz        Evangelina      Phoenix     Assassin    70  A5 NM    Frozen Tundra
Crazy_Bear      Jane_Doe        Javazon     Amazon      64  A4 NM    Pand Fortress
skoolbus        OneFingaPushup  Trapper     Assassin    57  A3 NM    Kurast Docks
SinningThings   Rapunzel        Trapsin     Assassin    25  A1 NM    Rogue Camp
Breaker         Nosiop          Poison      Necromancer 36  A5 Norm  Frigid Highlands
Chern           All_Alone       Summoner    Druid       33  A4 Norm  River of Flame
Zodwizard       HC_Rainwalker   Fire-Hunter Druid       29  A4 Norm  Pand Fortress
Anraxas         To_easy         Summoner    necro       28  A3 Norm  Kurast Docks
WestXylophone   SoloFirer       HolyFire    Paladin     26  A3 Norm  Kurast Docks
stephan         Louise                      Assassin    23  A3 Norm  Kurast Docks
Silverslasher   Forlorn         fire/summon Druid       28  A3 Norm  Kurast Docks
Cygnus          Lycus           Hammers     Paladin     25  A2 Norm  Harem
Friiser         HCAll_Alone     Summoner    Necro       22  A2 Norm  Far Oasis
Docturnal       Angriez         Fishyzon    Zon         21  A2 Norm  Rocky Waste
Ron             Bamboozle       Passive     Amazon      17  A2 Norm  Sewers Level 2
San             Sigrdrifa       PsnJava/MA  Zon         21  A2 Norm  Lut Gholein
thewamp         Athena          PJ/FA       Amazon      20  A2 Norm  Lut Gholein
Tweety          Remi            Boner       Necromancer 19  A2 Norm  Lut Gholein
Brak            Tojolobal       Quesodin    Paladin     19  A2 Norm  Lut Gholein
Ohomemgrande    Lonely          Trapper     Assassin    19  A2 Norm  Lut Gholein
tripsu          InsaneEnvy                  Amazon      18  A2 Norm  Lut Gholein  
Credge          YinMKII         --          Necro       17  A1 Norm  Jail Level 1
Hoop76          Lone_Ranger                 Paladin     15  A1 Norm  Outer Cloister
ZeN             DieAlone        Fishy       Necro       14  A1 Norm  Outer Cloister
GreyEagle       LoneEagle       Trapper     Assassin    17  A1 Norm  Tamoe Highlands
mjosh           Electrolyte     light sorc  Sorceress   15  A1 Norm  Black Marsh
Feared          April_Ethereal  Summoner    Necro        ?  A1 Norm  Black Marsh
Elendoras       TheBarbWhoCould             Barbarian   14  A1 Norm  Dark Wood
Fingerzam       Happiness       TS/DTail    Assassin    13  A1 Norm  Stony Field
Farfus          Farfus          Healbot     Paladin     12  A1 Norm  Stony Field
FromBeyond      HesHardcore                 Barbarian   11  A1 Norm  Stony Field
SonOfBaal       IHateYouAll     Trap/Summon Assassin    11  A1 Norm  Stony Field
Quickdeath      Eve             Cold        Sorceress   10  A1 Norm  Stony Field
Sindus          LonelyMaiden    Enchantress Sorc         7  A1 Norm  Stony Field
Chizz           Trapper         ?           Assassin     6  A1 Norm  Stony Field
AlienBoyz       DocWho          Summoner    Necro       12  A1 Norm  Cold Plains
Chymaera        Marius II       BlizBolt    Sorceress   10  A1 Norm  Cold Plain 
Liquidcore      ThaDru          Wind/fire   Druid        6  A1 Norm  Cold Plains
Vang            WirtsOldMan                 Barbarian    1  A1 Norm  Rogue Camp
rY xD           Illidan         Berzerker   Barbarian    1  A1 Norm  Rogue Camp
adny            Scorch          Hydrasorc   Sorceress    1  A1 Norm  Rogue Camp
Gabriel74       Smelly          Lightning   Sorceress    1  A1 Norm  Rogue Camp
Retawd          Sinistral       --          Assassin     1  A1 Norm  Rogue Camp
Darkstrikes     lighamus                    Amazon       1  A1 Norm  Rogue Camp

[highlight]Dead Characters[/highlight]
[b][u]Forum Name      Character       Build       Class       LVL   ACT         WP   [/u][/b]  
Mursilis        Anubis          Summoner    Necromancer 75  A2 Hell  Cellar lvl 3      
Butzull         Warnie          Hunter      Druid       75  A1 Hell  Outer Cloister
Breaker         PokePoke        Lancebarb   Barb        36  A4 Norm  River of Flame  
inSTAALed       EmoPhil         Ele         Druid       28  A4 Norm  River of Flame
whoisfu         WhoIsZon                    Amazon      35  A4 Norm  Chaos Sanctuary
jiansonz        Kevin           HF Zealot   Paladin     31  A3 Norm  Disused Reliquary
Silverslasher   Sizzlingpain    Trap        Assassin    28  A3 Norm  Kurast
EmperorMoo      GumbyKicksAss   Golemancer  Necro       26  A3 Norm  Flayer Jungle
Jabash          RunAway         Blade/Shdw  Assasin     28  A2 Norm  Duriel's Chamber
Anraxas         ibone_alone     ranger      Paladin     27  A2 Norm  Duriel's Chamber
newco           KissMyBoots     Hybrid      Assassin    27  A2 Norm  Duriel's Chamber
Crazy_Bear      Silent_Bob      Psn/Mage    Necromancer 27  A2 Norm  Duriel's Chamber
Butzull         Spinster                    Amazon      26  A2 Norm  Duriel's Chamber
EmperorMoo      BertieWooster   Summoner    Necromancer 25  A2 Norm  Duriel's chamber
Sindus          Sindus          Comando     Necro       25  A2 Norm  Summoner
inSTAALed       HumanMeatBlock  Con         Barb        21  A2 Norm  Halls of Dead
Colorless Green Omega                       Assassin    21  A2 Norm  Halls/Dead2
EJB             WheresEveryone              Druid       22  A2 Norm  Radament
EmperorMoo      GotArrers       Mageazon    Amazon      21  A2 Norm  Radamant  
ShockTactics    Frostshock      Frostadin   Paladin     20  A2 Norm  Radamant
Chymaera        Marius          BlizBolt    Sorceress   14  A1 Norm  Black Marsh
chizz           Chizzy          Summoner    Necro       11  A1 Norm  Jail level 1
EmperorMoo      Wordsworth      Summon      Necromancer 11  A1 Norm  Tamoe Highland
Anraxas         ibone_alone     bone        Necro        8  A1 Norm  Countess
Liquidcore      FightingLove    Sniperzon   Amazon       6  A1 Norm  Stony Field

 

[Insane Wayne]

Welcome to the tournament. :smiley:
It's good to see a barbarian. Very challenging no doubt, but I know it's possible. You might want to take a look at another tourney thread featuring 100% barbarians with no town repairs, the Money-Haters. Plenty of tips there, you will definitely want to do a lot of weapon rerolling!

 

[skoolbus1]

Welcome to the tournament. :smiley:
It's good to see a barbarian. Very challenging no doubt, but I know it's possible. You might want to take a look at another tourney thread featuring 100% barbarians with no town repairs, the Money-Haters. Plenty of tips there, you will definitely want to do a lot of weapon rerolling!

In the first two All Alone tourneys, I played a pally using zeal, so I know all about weapon nightmares (though I could get by with a cracked club if need be). My advice is find a good base magic weapon (I used sceptors, but there's plenty of others) and save all the chipped gems you get, and use the 3 chipped gem+magic item to reroll stuff. When I found flawed gems or extra runes, I would just throw them into the weapon for the 20 or so durability it had left.

By the way, welcome to the SPF, you certainly picked a difficult tournament to start out with :wink3:. Hopefully I'll have time to play either tomorrow night or sat, work has been KILLING ME these past few weeks.

 

[jiansonz]

but no other part of my equipment broke...ever :shocked: . (not even the 1/3 dur. Cracked sash i used until the entrance in the underground passage)

Haven´t we all used one of those...plenty of times.
The monsters in the early areas must buy 1/3 dur. Cracked Sashes in bulk, since there seem to be so many. :wink3:
A nice thing about them is that it really doesn´t matter if they break; as long as you don´t remove it, it will still hold potions.

Good luck in the tournament! A barb will be a challenge, but they are also masters of getting by with little resources.

Another little tip: if you find a good sword type (like Long Sword, which is fast and does good damage) don´t forget this little recipe:
Magical sword + 4 healing potions (any size) + ruby (any size) -> Sword (same type) of the Leech. You won´t get sockets (well, there is a small chance of Mechanic´s), but you may get a useful prefix.

 

[Insane Wayne]

Ugh. Act 1 Hell is not a nice place for a lightning zon. The very beginning wasn't so bad. Den of Evil was no problem. Corpsefire dropped a rare elite claw. Must...resist....urge to ID. Curiosity...overpowering...
I had to do it. Pretty nice claw! :tongue:

The party ended quick. So many damn lightning immunes! Against large packs of LI undead, I equipped maximum mana (~500) and applied group damage with Frozen Arrow. At p1, it's enough to get the job done, but it's slow. The valk took down the small groups. She has no problems with demons, but she's not so quick against the undead. The best way to customize her is to cast her with poison damage for PMH, and hopefully CBF and poison immunity. One of my valks spawned a Pike of Invisibile Extra-Longness. Something went haywire, and she was able to poke at monsters well out of range. Unfortunately, they could hit her from afar as well, so I guess it evened out.

Blood Raven's area was the worst, all immunes above ground and below. I harassed Raven non-stop until she fell to CS, taking out a couple dozen zombies. The tombs were awful, all I could do was putz around messing with my inventory. For kicks, I equipped junk items with Ice Blast and Blessed Hammer charges. Of course, the damage was negligible.

Asteria played her first game of "Can it Be Killed?" against this horrible zombie boss. Fanat CE Stone Skin PI LI! Immune to all our major attacks and highly resistant to cold! And I don't have OW or true PMH. I parked him while I cleared the rest of the level for resources to use against him.

With 700 arrows, I began my assault. He gradually lost tiny slivers of life, and I kept at it. It's working!
Uh-oh... I'm low on arrows and mana, this is gonna be close!...
Curses! Foul creature! Slivered and out of arrows!
But wait... I will jab at thee and inflict mighty charm damage in the form of 1-2 fire damage, 2-4 cold, and a little poison for PMH!
HaHaHa!! Glorious ice cubes!

The worst was over. Many of the following areas had some LIs, but also other monsters I could tear through. The Tower was packed with boss packs, but no major stair traps. Easy clear. Countess dropped an Ith, Nef, and a Key of Terror. The ghosts dropped some ID scrolls, but I'm still running low. My only helpful find: a Maiden's amulet, which is slightly more useful the my +1 passive ammy.

Other finds:
Natural Grand Charm of Quality

[highlight]Conqueror Asteria, 1.11 CS Amazon, level 76, Act 1 Hell, Tamoe Highland[/highlight]

 

[jiansonz]

Asteria played her first game of "Can it Be Killed?"

Yikes! That was a tough dude indeed. The only good thing is that as long as you keep it poisoned, it has no way of healing itself.

What was the reward for killing it? Looks like a buckler or something similar.

 

[Insane Wayne]

It was a lowly magic crown, which I didn't bother to ID. (probably a perfect jeweler's/mammoth...) At least it dropped something, I had a couple bosses drop flawed skulls or similar nonsense.

 

[Fingerzam]

I've been thinking about which shadow I should take.

Warrior would let me have more control, but my current lvl 1 warrior doesn't seem to want to charge tiger strike more than a single charge and doesn't even always use Dragon Tail to finish it when it's the only skill available, but rather uses a plain attack. This doesn't really make me want to use it.

Master would get better items and better resistances and would use a variety of skills, but I'm also a bit afraid of it using CoS where it will crash my game.

About items, what boots do shadows use? I can't find any information about them, and if they don't have boots, what is their base kick damage? If it's low, there wouldn't be any point in driving a warrior for me.

 

[Elendoras]

A small update for "TheBarbWhoCould".

After entering the Black Marsh things started getting a little too..."interesting". He was getting hit a lot more often than in the Dark Wood; even with an 8-10% chance to get hit; i even had a couple of moments when i went into a small block-lock from all the damned carvers swarming me. Howl came in handy again to stop this though.

But the true challenge lied in the Countess' tower. While i was used to breezing through this, i had a rather unpleasant surprise when i encountered a CE rogue archer boss group couples with a rogue archer champ pack near it :yikes:. I managed to pull the boss group away from the champs (thank god for twisting corridors), and then slowly but surely taunted the minions away from the boss, behind a wall and killed them one by one. The actual "dudette" was actually a lot more annoying since she was hitting me constantly with the chill...at least until i remembered concentrate actually has some preq. skills. That 1 point in stun was all i needed to swing the tide and kill her in a matter of seconds (the actual stun didn't affect her all the time but it gave me a couple of breaks where i could swing at her at my normal attack speed) :grin:

I was filled with "joy" when my last non-cracked melee weapon broke after this fight. Luckily, searching through the pockets of some rogues i found a 3os Hunter bow, on which i promptly used a chipped sapphire, emerald and topaz.

On the next level i had the "merry band of extra fast" ghosts out for my head. I HATE physical resistant monsters. Careful taunting and "luring behind a wall" technique worked wonders again, even though attacking with a bow in melee combat isn't exactly my idea of "safe fighting". Oh, did i say i hate physical resistance monsters?

In the end after another few tedious battles with other packs of ghosts i managed to slay the countess who dropped only an El rune and some rare throwing daggers i didn't bother carry around since i was out of ID scrolls. Also, apparently she hated me even more than usual since her chest didn't open.

Moving on to Tamoe Highlands and the Pit: never remember these areas being so easy. Taunt+non-unique ranged attackers=:jig: . In the Pit level 2 i had my first NDE with a LE rogue archer. Taunting in this level doesn't work that well because the mobs often hit walls and just resume their normal attacks, thus making my main tactic hard to use. This battle took almost 10 minutes featuring me trying to lure one minion away in corner one at a time without attracting attention to the others. Finished this, out of red potions and with only around 50HP out of my 215.

Now "TheBarbWhoCould" has reached the Outer Cloister at level 17 (and 3/4) doing full clears on /p8.

This session was a little more rewarding since it netted me a self repairing weapon (a scimitar having +1 cold damage its best mod :/), self-repairing gloves and a better self-repairing skull cap with a little poison resist. Lots of useless rares, no S/U. Find item on the uniques has netted me zilch to this moment but i hope i'll hit the jackpot sometime. Funny enough i'm still using my yellow leather armor i found in the den, with a whooping 66/72 durability

My main concern right now is that i'm not getting any decent shield and maintaining a decent chance-to-block (over 50%) is taking it's toll on this character (no spare attribute points).

Thanks for the suggested recipes, i'll keep them in mind if/when i get the horadric cube. It feels so "empty" without it ^^

Whew ...long post...wasn't expecting it to take this long. I'll try to write sorter stuff next time =)

 

[OldSoldier1]

Welcome to the tournament Elendoras! Don't worry about the length of the posts; people aren't required to read them, and those that follow the thread may be interested to hear of your experiences. It's all part of the forum family.

Insane Wayne, I feel your pain about the LIs in the burial grounds area. I couldn't kill blood raven because she'd raise a single zombie and run away and the valk would take 10 seconds to kill it, whilst she made two more. Not worth it to me. And every monster in the crypt and mausoleum was LI for me, definitely not worth it. So I skipped them; more power to you for doing it.

Last night Princess_Diana was just going to try to find the dry hills WP and call it a day, but she ended up going a bit farther. In most areas there were beetles, which are lightning immune, so that slowed things up a bit, but the valk was a good one and hit pretty hard, killing most things in 3 hits or less, not bad for Hell difficulty! Unfortunately a boss cursed her and killed her about 80% of the way through the run last night and I couldn't get one to deal really good damage after that. In the Halls of the Dead the reviving monsters (what ARE their names?) were LI, but the zombies and skeletons were not. Therein lies the weakness of my build compared to a CS build- I run out of lightning damage when my javelins deplete, so I couldn't clear this area. I went to the Stony Tomb, which had many more LIs and had to park the first of four LI/PI bosses (three of them were beetles). I tried to damage him and was successful; in about 5 minutes I got about 30% of his life gone by keeping him poisoned and the magic damage (at least 5 per hit!) did have effect. Alas I gave up and moved on because I hadn't found a good WP yet.

I searched all Far Oasis, with many more beetles, those things were everywhere! I decided to do the maggot lair, which, obviously, had both scarabs and death beetles as types of monsters on both the first and second level. Not dangerous, but VERY slow. The third level was a cakewalk, containing itchies and both types of worms. The worms were poison immune, meaning they regenerated very fast. Sometimes I went very low on javelins just hitting them as hard as possible before they went underground and regained 20% of their life back. Champions were really hard, as my valk was a wimpy one and I tried several more of them but none seemed to get better.

I went near Coldworm's area to start them spawning eggs and opened one other area to let the monsters build up a bit. I went back and the entire room was clogged with worms. With 21 lightning bolts all doing up to 566 damage, piercing through the entire room, I cleared it out in seconds. I threw some javelins down the corridor and wiped it out. I dropped some full rejuvenation potions to make room for the staff and called it a day.

She found a sol as a reward drop from a boss and kept it by tossing out a full rejuv potion. She also found a +11 res all rare ring, and can now get LR up to 75% by switching gear. Booyah!

 

[Mursilis]

Nice progress OldSoldier, seems not much is giving you issues you can't handle/park.

I decided to do the maggot lair, which, obviously, had both scarabs and death beetles as types of monsters on both the first and second level. Not dangerous, but VERY slow.

I'm curious as to what your definition of slow is. For me slow was 2 hours in the Maggot Lair :shocked:

 

[crazy_bear]

Congrats on the conqueror jiansonz, that's awesome. Looks like you took apart Baal very easily. :thumbsup:

Welcome Elendoras. Good luck with the barb! :smiley: Things will roll nicely once you find a good self-repairing weapon.

@Insane Wayne, your patience is amazing. I never would have bothered with a boss like that. Too much effort for me. You deserve a better drop than that from him.

@Oldsoldier, I'm not looking forward to act 2 either. Good job so far.

As for Jane_Doe, a couple of sessions today took her from Harrogath all the way to the Frozen Tundra. It seems that the undead are going to be the main difficulty for Jane at this point. All the skeleton types were poison immune. This means that Jane has to use LF or arrows to pick off the skellies. However, LF goes through a lot of javs, and without replenishing it's a pain in the rear end. Not really that bad though, as progress was stil reasonable. In any case, Jane actually had relatively little difficulty throughout. In the frozen river there were snakes and 2 types of succubus, which was fairly easy to clear fully, leaving poor Anya alone in her prison of ice.
In the hell pit in the frozen tundra there were Oblivion Knights and PsnI Balrogs. Nice little reminder of what the Chaos Sanctuary was like in act 4. Again, no real problems.
For interesting finds, Jane found a few normal uniques, none useful, another Spire of Honor, and a Thul rune. She tried another safety ammy with this result: ammy screenshot Would've been great for a sorc! Oh well.
Looking at my overcrowded collection of items, I realize a sane player would start ditching some of the gems and less useful runes. Here is my inventory: inventory screenshot But since I am not sane, I'm still holding out for the item or two that makes it all come together.

Jane_Doe, lvl 70 amazon, Act 5 NM, Frozen Tundra WP

 

[Magicboy]

Well, I got a little bored of Battle.net so I decided to enter this tournament (probably a little late :azn: ). Sindri is a summoning necromancer who plans on using bone spirit to whack down 1 monster and then have summons take care of the rest.

Today, I went through most of act 1 on 8 player without much difficulty. In the cave, I nearly got killed by Coldcrow when my skeletons died. Fortunately, I had a rejuv in my belt and I resummoned my army. The rest of the act was pretty easy up to the catacombs where the monsters had more hp than I expected. I took the difficulty down to 1 for Andariel and she was a piece of cake.


Sindri, lvl 20 Necromancer, Act 2 Normal, Lut Gholein WP

 

[Fingerzam]

Nothing interesting happened in The Underground Passage or Dark Wood, did full clears on everything. Countess dropped two rals, which was a pleasant surprise. There was a river in black marsh and for some reason my game on the other side of the bridge and the next time I just skipped the other half of black marsh completely.

Tamoe Highlands was a pain. My melee weapon broke and the the only weapon I had left was a short bow with a chipped saphire and a chipped topaz. So I tried to gather a group of enemies to a single spot and use CoS and Blade Sentinel to kill them in a reasonable time. The first thing I meet is a champion pack of archers :undecided: and then i run away from them to meet a boss pack of archers. :sad2:

After killing them really slowly with BS and my bow, at some point I find a scimitar and things start looking better. At some point of this I found Death's gloves, really nice drop for beating Andariel, but I got hit a lot and soon had only 3 durability left on them. Stored them in my invetory after that.

After I got to lvl 18 things got a lot easier, blade fury and shadow warrior helped a ton, and my main skill (DTail) came available. I found a identify tome in the jails, and on the way to Andariel I found a total of 4 set items, the Death's Hand mentioned previously, Cleglaw shields, Arctic belt and Hsaru's shield. I also found a rare self-repairing sabre, which was a really good drop. With the deaths hand and TS+DTail, Andariel was pretty easy. Unfortunately, she didn't drop anything useful.

Then it was time for A2. Started with the Sewers. Couldn't really use DTail much here because I couldn't leach life with CS from skeletons, so I spent much time just hacking at things with my sabre. Radament was really easy, because I could get the charges from hitting the skeletons and then go DTail Radament, while CoS prevented any ranged monsters from shooting at me.

After that, everything that was leechable was quickly dead. Once I found tir and el I made a Steel for BF. Did full clears on every area on /p8. Notable finds were Cleglaw's gloves in Arcane Sanctuary (at this point I asked myself why I had a useless Hsaru's shield on my BF switch instead of the Cleglaw's I found earlier), which I still use and normal greaves (as my damage depends on boots). At some point I switched my main weapon with a stack of balanced knives (they are faster than a sabre) to see if they last as long as some have claimed, and they did, so I dropped my repairing sabre. I'm not so sure this was good idea though.

After clearing the Canyon I cleared all six false tombs. Some of these were pretty dangerous, especially because I couldn't use CoS, but BF helped a lot against the most dangerous enemies. After that I went to the real tomb and cleared it, and without thinking enough I went to Duriels Chamber thinking I had prepared and then I realised I was still on /players 8.

My shadow died in two or three blows, but I tried to use those seconds to charge TS and CS, so if I had both charged and still had mana, I recasted shadow because I would soon have full mana anyways. I couldn't take many hits from Duriel and the slow chilled kick always felt like an eternity, especially when it missed twice in a row. After a lot of running around, drinking potions and casting shadow I finally won the battle, with 2 health potions and 4 full rejuvs left.

[highlight]Happiness, TS/DTail Assassin, level 28, Act 3, Kurast Docks[/highlight]

 

[crazy_bear]

Introducing Conqueror Jane_Doe!

The last session of NM started in the Ancient's Way, after a very short sprint from the Frozen Tundra. Jane had an easy time with the minions there. The valk took care of the bone mages (or they got arrowed) and Jane poisoned the rest (Afflicted and Frozen Creepers). Jane's closest experience with death here was in Snapchip's cave when she tried to run past the Valk just as the valk took a swing at a FE stygian doll boss. Boom! That took about 500 life, and left me feeling dumb for running that way. Ouch! Anyway, Jane obviously survived and it was on to the ancients.

Approaching the pedastal Jane cast a decoy and then touched the altar. As the 3 ancients sprang to life, they all saw the glowing valkyrie and charged. Standing back, Jane launched plague javelins into the fray. Despite their best efforts, the valk never dropped below 3/4 life, and soon all three ancients were returned to statue form. This was the easiest battle with ancients I have ever had.

In the WSK Jane found lots of poisonable creatures. They never stood a chance. So when she reached the throne room she was well supplied having carried an extra load to make a stash of potions and javelins. The throne room contained Blood Lords, Invaders and Oblivion Knights. The main worry here was to bring the Oblivion Knights away from the throne area to ensure none got ressurected. This was successful as none reappeared during the battle with Achmel. The minion waves were much easier this time compared to normal. A large factor was probably the PMH on the blackhorn's face. None of the waves needed to be parked this time, and it was on to Baal.

With no way to bring anything extra in, Jane had to do Baal with the stack of Javelins she was carrying, and the potions in her belt. I thought the safest way to fight would be to run in, throw a plague jav in, then run away. Only problem was, I would get tagged by the appendages, and Baal kept summoning his clone. After trying this for a bit, Baal had lost about 1/3 life, and Jane had gone through about 2/3 of her javs and 1/3 of her potions. Time to get the Valk involved. Instead of the javelins, I started casting the valk right on top of Baal. This seemed to distract him from using his other powers so much, so the valk got some hits in, and Jane could also keep the poison going. She ran out of javelins, but used the last one with the arrows to make 30 more. Finally, Baal dropped and victory was ours!


On finishing NM/Starting hell:
Base Stats:
Str 95
Dex 155
VIT 175
ENE 25
Life 749
Mana 240
Resists in Hell (with shield): 36/62/62/-10

Skills:
Javelin Tree: Jab 1 / Psn Jav 10 / Plague Jav 20 / LF 16
Passive Tree: All 1 except valk 16
Bow Tree: 1 in MA, 1 in Freezing Arrow and pre-reqs.

Primary Gear:
- Tarnhelm (44% MF)
- Prismatic Ammy (17%)
- javelin (yup, regular old javelin, same as starter weapon)
- Moser's Blessed Circle w 2x p diamond Dur:39 of 64
- Beast Mantle Plate Mail: Dur 30 of 60 (+44 to Life, +80% Enhanced Defense, Damage Reduced by 1, Fire Resist +26%, Poison Length Reduced by 25%)
- Trang Oul's Claws Heavy Bracers
- Sigon's Wrap Plated Belt
- Viper Shank Heavy Boots Dur 11of 14 (+51% Enhanced Defense, Lightning Resist +37%, Cold Resist +19%, 10% Faster Hit Recovery, Half Freeze Duration)
- Beast Gyre Ring (+1 to Energy, +21 to Life, +82 to Attack Rating, Fire/Cold/Psn res +10%, light res +19%)
- Bahamut's Ring of the Mind (+5 engergy, +108 mana)

Weapon switch:
- EndlessHail Double Bow (found in Arreat Plateau, forgot to mention it last update)

Charms:
- Fine Small Charm of Shock, Septic Small Charm of Blight, Lapis Small Charm of Strength, Sapphire Small Charm of Dexterity, Coral Small Charm of Inertia, Amber Large Charm of Winter, Lapis Small Charm of Life, Tangerine Small Charm of Frost

The Rest:
- Blackhorn's Face Death Mask, Acrobatic Amulet of precision, Nagelring (25% mf)
- crimson jewel of virility (+7 min dmg, +3 str), Lapis Lazuli jewel of Bliss (+10 min dmg, +5 cold res)
- 4x p diamond, 3x p ruby, 2x p topaz, 4x p sapphire, 3x p. amythyst, 1x p skull, 1x flawless ruby
- 2xral, ort, thul, amn, sol, shael, dol, hel, ko

[highlight]Alive Characters[/highlight]  
[b][u]Forum Name      Character       Build       Class       LVL   ACT         WP      [/u][/b]  
OldSoldier      Princess_Diana  MA/LF       Amazon      76  A2 Hell  Far Oasis
Insane Wayne    Asteria         CS          Amazon      76  A1 Hell  Tamoe Highland
jiansonz        Evangelina      Phoenix     Assassin    73  A1 Hell  Rogue Camp
Crazy_Bear      Jane_Doe        Javazon     Amazon      72  A1 Hell  Rogue Camp
skoolbus        OneFingaPushup  Trapper     Assassin    57  A3 NM    Kurast Docks
SinningThings   Rapunzel        Trapsin     Assassin    25  A1 NM    Rogue Camp
Breaker         Nosiop          Poison      Necromancer 36  A5 Norm  Frigid Highlands
Chern           All_Alone       Summoner    Druid       33  A4 Norm  River of Flame
Zodwizard       HC_Rainwalker   Fire-Hunter Druid       29  A4 Norm  Pand Fortress
Anraxas         To_easy         Summoner    necro       28  A3 Norm  Kurast Docks
WestXylophone   SoloFirer       HolyFire    Paladin     26  A3 Norm  Kurast Docks
stephan         Louise                      Assassin    23  A3 Norm  Kurast Docks
Silverslasher   Forlorn         fire/summon Druid       28  A3 Norm  Kurast Docks
Cygnus          Lycus           Hammers     Paladin     25  A2 Norm  Harem
Friiser         HCAll_Alone     Summoner    Necro       22  A2 Norm  Far Oasis
Docturnal       Angriez         Fishyzon    Zon         21  A2 Norm  Rocky Waste
Ron             Bamboozle       Passive     Amazon      17  A2 Norm  Sewers Level 2
San             Sigrdrifa       PsnJava/MA  Zon         21  A2 Norm  Lut Gholein
thewamp         Athena          PJ/FA       Amazon      20  A2 Norm  Lut Gholein
Tweety          Remi            Boner       Necromancer 19  A2 Norm  Lut Gholein
Brak            Tojolobal       Quesodin    Paladin     19  A2 Norm  Lut Gholein
Ohomemgrande    Lonely          Trapper     Assassin    19  A2 Norm  Lut Gholein
tripsu          InsaneEnvy                  Amazon      18  A2 Norm  Lut Gholein  
Credge          YinMKII         --          Necro       17  A1 Norm  Jail Level 1
Hoop76          Lone_Ranger                 Paladin     15  A1 Norm  Outer Cloister
ZeN             DieAlone        Fishy       Necro       14  A1 Norm  Outer Cloister
GreyEagle       LoneEagle       Trapper     Assassin    17  A1 Norm  Tamoe Highlands
mjosh           Electrolyte     light sorc  Sorceress   15  A1 Norm  Black Marsh
Feared          April_Ethereal  Summoner    Necro        ?  A1 Norm  Black Marsh
Elendoras       TheBarbWhoCould             Barbarian   14  A1 Norm  Dark Wood
Fingerzam       Happiness       TS/DTail    Assassin    13  A1 Norm  Stony Field
Farfus          Farfus          Healbot     Paladin     12  A1 Norm  Stony Field
FromBeyond      HesHardcore                 Barbarian   11  A1 Norm  Stony Field
SonOfBaal       IHateYouAll     Trap/Summon Assassin    11  A1 Norm  Stony Field
Quickdeath      Eve             Cold        Sorceress   10  A1 Norm  Stony Field
Sindus          LonelyMaiden    Enchantress Sorc         7  A1 Norm  Stony Field
Chizz           Trapper         ?           Assassin     6  A1 Norm  Stony Field
AlienBoyz       DocWho          Summoner    Necro       12  A1 Norm  Cold Plains
Chymaera        Marius II       BlizBolt    Sorceress   10  A1 Norm  Cold Plain 
Liquidcore      ThaDru          Wind/fire   Druid        6  A1 Norm  Cold Plains
Vang            WirtsOldMan                 Barbarian    1  A1 Norm  Rogue Camp
rY xD           Illidan         Berzerker   Barbarian    1  A1 Norm  Rogue Camp
adny            Scorch          Hydrasorc   Sorceress    1  A1 Norm  Rogue Camp
Gabriel74       Smelly          Lightning   Sorceress    1  A1 Norm  Rogue Camp
Retawd          Sinistral       --          Assassin     1  A1 Norm  Rogue Camp
Darkstrikes     lighamus                    Amazon       1  A1 Norm  Rogue Camp

[highlight]Dead Characters[/highlight]
[b][u]Forum Name      Character       Build       Class       LVL   ACT         WP   [/u][/b]  
Mursilis        Anubis          Summoner    Necromancer 75  A2 Hell  Cellar lvl 3      
Butzull         Warnie          Hunter      Druid       75  A1 Hell  Outer Cloister
Breaker         PokePoke        Lancebarb   Barb        36  A4 Norm  River of Flame  
inSTAALed       EmoPhil         Ele         Druid       28  A4 Norm  River of Flame
whoisfu         WhoIsZon                    Amazon      35  A4 Norm  Chaos Sanctuary
jiansonz        Kevin           HF Zealot   Paladin     31  A3 Norm  Disused Reliquary
Silverslasher   Sizzlingpain    Trap        Assassin    28  A3 Norm  Kurast
EmperorMoo      GumbyKicksAss   Golemancer  Necro       26  A3 Norm  Flayer Jungle
Jabash          RunAway         Blade/Shdw  Assasin     28  A2 Norm  Duriel's Chamber
Anraxas         ibone_alone     ranger      Paladin     27  A2 Norm  Duriel's Chamber
newco           KissMyBoots     Hybrid      Assassin    27  A2 Norm  Duriel's Chamber
Crazy_Bear      Silent_Bob      Psn/Mage    Necromancer 27  A2 Norm  Duriel's Chamber
Butzull         Spinster                    Amazon      26  A2 Norm  Duriel's Chamber
EmperorMoo      BertieWooster   Summoner    Necromancer 25  A2 Norm  Duriel's chamber
Sindus          Sindus          Comando     Necro       25  A2 Norm  Summoner
inSTAALed       HumanMeatBlock  Con         Barb        21  A2 Norm  Halls of Dead
Colorless Green Omega                       Assassin    21  A2 Norm  Halls/Dead2
EJB             WheresEveryone              Druid       22  A2 Norm  Radament
EmperorMoo      GotArrers       Mageazon    Amazon      21  A2 Norm  Radamant  
ShockTactics    Frostshock      Frostadin   Paladin     20  A2 Norm  Radamant
Chymaera        Marius          BlizBolt    Sorceress   14  A1 Norm  Black Marsh
chizz           Chizzy          Summoner    Necro       11  A1 Norm  Jail level 1
EmperorMoo      Wordsworth      Summon      Necromancer 11  A1 Norm  Tamoe Highland
Anraxas         ibone_alone     bone        Necro        8  A1 Norm  Countess
Liquidcore      FightingLove    Sniperzon   Amazon       6  A1 Norm  Stony Field

 

[Insane Wayne]

Great work crazy_bear! :smiley:
PMH is definitely handy against Baal's minions.
That Moser's sure looks tasty. Great blocking and 63 resist-all! :starry:
Saves a lot of charm space, but be careful using your bow, you'll be dipping into the red zone! Should be manageable as long as you stay alert, and you have a decent amount of life as insurance.

-Bahamut's Ring of the Mind (+5 engergy, +108 mana)

Weapon switch:
- EndlessHail Double Bow (found in Arreat Plateau, forgot to mention it last update)

It's funny, we both found these exact same items in the exact same places.

 

[OldSoldier1]

Mursilis, the maggot lair probably took me about 75 minutes. Level 1 was by far the hardest, I found the stairs in the last possible room that I could explore. Level 2 had the same types of LI monsters but I found the stairs faster, and level 3 was all poison and physical immunes, no problem there. Sometimes the valk would have to kill 10 or 12 of those beetles, one at a time, with me plinking away slowly with MA and poison charms, prepared to cast a decoy at my backside if a monster found the path. So far I have been really fortunate with not having crazy stair traps and the chaos sanctuary has been good for me with the layout and infector's spawning.

Crazy Bear, congrats on achieving conqueror! I tried the valk casting thing myself but he nearly always teleported right after I did that, or cast a clone, and the two of them could smash a valk in seconds. Good to hear it worked well for you. I'll keep watching your thread with interest.

Last night I played a bit more, starting from the far oasis WP. I ran past dozens upon dozens of beetles until I got to the entrance to the Lost City. They boxed me in a time or two, and I used one full rejuv potion before I did a Barry-Sanders style end run and got past them all into the Lost City. I did kill a few (3-4) right at the entrance that were going to follow me and make any tactical retreat through that corridor very difficult. I hope no one frowns on this. There were three boss packs right inside the entrance, none of them LI, so they went down quickly. My valk spawned poison immune so she was happy here and in the Ancient Tunnels (no finds but no problems either). A normal monster dropped a gold ring in the Lost City, which I figured would be a manald heal, but it turned out to be a carrion wind. I decided to keep it and wear it, which gives me a question: how can you repair charges on a ring? It had only two charges of poison creeper; can I get more? It doesn't really fall into either armor or weapon category. I haven't tried any recipes yet, that can't hurt I suppose.

Claw viper temple was filled with CI stuff- vipers, bone mages and (FI) guardians. No problems at all on level 1. I was prepared to have a battle royale aka Wrestlemania IV, but upon entrance there was nothing there. Fangskin was not near the door, or anything else for that matter. When he did appear my valk engaged and I supported with lightning artillery until he went down (and dropped nothing at all). I smashed the altar and saved my game. Now level 77 and ready to avenge Anubis in the cellar. It'll be time for slow missiles to shine, now.

 

[Insane Wayne]

it turned out to be a carrion wind. I decided to keep it and wear it, which gives me a question: how can you repair charges on a ring?

Unfortunately, there's no way to cube-repair charges on a ring. I had a tourney zon who found that ring, and had mixed results with the poison creeper. Against some monster types, it lasted forever and was useful for group PMH poisoning and as a distraction. Against others, it was insta-killed repeatedly. Also, some monsters tend to focus on the vine, and will try to follow it as it pops up in random spots, which might be near you.

The ctc spells are somewhat useful. Twisters cause mini-stuns as they pass through mobs.

 

[jiansonz]

until he went down (and dropped nothing at all).

In the current version (v1.11) Hell Fangskin never drops anything. Such are the mysterious ways of the programmers of this game; with every version, bugs get fixed and new ones (that were never around before) get introduced. :scratch:

Nice progress! :thumbsup: If you can reach the Arcane Sanctuary, you´ll set a new All Alone best.