An Untwinked 99er Sept

PhineasB

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Mar 14, 2020
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In March 2016, @Kitteh posted the relaunch of the untwinked 99er challenge in the old forum. Around that time, I was nearing the end of my 7x7+2 project, my interest in questing characters through was waning, and the untwinked 99er challenge caught my attention and excitement for a new challenge. I entered immediately with an Assassin. A little less than six years later, I got my seventh character in the challenge to 99, so I figured a Sept write up was in order.

A list of the characters, with brief summary of build and a link to the 99er write up for each, is below, with quick impressions on each in the order completed following that. Because the 99er write ups are very detailed, I won't cover gear and progress here, but focus more on my experience playing each through. And I'll conclude with some general thoughts and reflections on the Sept. But first, here's a picture of the character screen showing the Sept (before Phaedrus was dusted off to take down Baal):
99ers.jpg

The Untwinked 99ers

Mercy (Assassin): I went with an Assassin to start because Trappers are so well-rounded and I thought it would be a fun play style that would help keep me engaged for the long haul (which it was and did). Her gear was pretty much perfect (once Arachnids finally dropped), and her charm collection is something that some of my twinked characters would envy. Honestly, I think she was my favorite character in the Sept, in terms of fun from start to finish, nice gear, and being proud of getting her through. This also is likely because she was the first character I took to 99. Not being able to save Ancients is the downside, but easily offset by other upsides.

Hiatus (Sorceress): I realized as Mercy progressed that I really enjoyed the early stage after basic questing to gathering the core gear. So much so that I decided to start a second character, Hiatus, a few months after entering Mercy. Having two characters at different stages and able to run different targets ended up being something I liked, to the point of eventually having three entrants at the same time for large stretches, and it was a key reason I was able to stay engaged with the untwinked 99er challenge. Baal becoming a slog? Switch to Pindle runs! LK getting dreary? Do some Chaos or Nihl runs! I had lots of fun with her as a Blizz sorc, but lack of Griffons or Arachnids at level 98 made decision to go full lightning less than ideal. In retrospect, Fire would have been better, but I still enjoyed my time with her at Nihl.

Phaedrus (Paladin): Hammerdin. Pretty straightforward, and I enjoyed running CS with him. The experience with him questing at p1 persuaded me to not go with that approach again, as it was frustrating at times in the 70s and 80s due to being undergeared and underleveled. He was the slowest character for the last level because he stayed at CS, but that was in part due to my decision to run straight p7 and hit occasional boss packs for most of it. He was also the fastest to date for 97-98 with the p8/p7 runs (Quinta eventually barely surpassed him). The runehaul with him was bonkers!

Pestilence (Necromancer): A very close second to Mercy as a favorite character. His drops were just out of this world (DWeb, 2/20 craft, 2 Fungal Vita Skillers, etc.), so several "stare at the screen in disbelief" moments that are so exhilarating and especially so in this challenge. I stayed in the Pit to 98, and he had some great drops, but was slow on XP/hr compared to other characters for this stage. But I addressed the S&E lag issue at Nihl by this time, so he also was materially faster XP/hour for the last level than the prior three.

Quinta (Amazon): As Phaedrus was getting started, I needed a break from the exclusive focus on XP runs and LK. Single pass tournament characters (or in the case of Death, non-tourney) ended up being my approach for early stage (character generation) for the last three 99ers, affording a break but also teeing up the next 99er entrant. All three classes also were assumed to focus on Baal runs, so saving Ancients wasn't as big an issue. Quinta was a blast, and also a great exemplar of how I used participation in SPF magic find or rune find tourneys as a way to push my 99ers forward. She won the Pindle category of MFO 2018 and placed second in the Baal category of MFO 2019, netting major XP gains across those 10 days each time. She also got very fast XP/hr for the last three levels, and was the fastest of all 7 characters for that last stretch. Had I not started her as a tourney character and just quested directly, she likely would have been the fastest from start to finish (although I didn't keep track of time for any of them, so it's all a guestimate).

Death (Barbarian): His rune luck was off the charts, but that's likely due to entering him for Trav in two consecutive RFLs. He also was the only one of the seven to go without extended stash, which was an interesting change up. By this point, several others had trod the path of WW -> Concentrate in the Untwinked 99er challenge, so I was also able to draw from those experiences. Even though single target for Nihl led to terrible drops, he was by far the fastest XP/hr for the last level, topping out at 3.5M (and aided by continued improvements to my S&E times and minimal drops).

Septimus (Druid): I'm glad I saved him for last because there were definitely some times where it got a little sloggy with the Druid and knowing that he would complete the Sept helped me to push through. It wasn't actually that bad, and he was able to approach Pit runs basically as a MF character, which netted some nice drops. Baal got sloggy, so we shifted to Nihl at 97.4, and he was surprisingly solid as a Nihl runner. I wouldn't have thought after my experience with Mercy and Hiatus that telebombing Nihl with merc and Oak was a viable tactic with Vipers, but after my experience with Death I gave it a shot. And it worked pretty well actually.

Concluding Thoughts

As I said when I entered Mercy in the challenge in 2016, the untwinked 99er challenge is actually what persuaded me to delurk and start posting in the SPF. And I think it's been a great testament to the SPF, with all the theorycrafting and detailed knowledge and testing, as well as generosity of forum members in sharing ideas and suggestions. The challenge was still going strong when we shifted to the new forum, with @Vildecor doing amazing work migrating posts from the 100+ pages from the the thread at the old forum, and then renewed interest and new entrants with the release of D2R last year.

To put this project in context for myself, I pulled together some stats or details on how my completion of the Sept interacts with other things tracked in the SPF:
- I was at grail -25 or so when I created Mercy. I'm now at grail -1 and every bit of that progress came from the Untwinked 99ers.
- Eth grail was at -100+ and I'm now well under 50. Again, almost every one of those came from these Untwinked 99ers (a handful came from HC characters).
- I completed the Runeword Grail and virtually all the high runes came from these characters.
- I tracked LK runs by counting runes or by counting the runs, depending on the character. So I don't have a precise count. But my estimate is ~17900 LK runs completed across the seven characters.
- As a result of the above (and amount of runs for other targets), my overall charm collection got a huge upgrade.

More generally, this has been a lot of fun, providing a welcome distraction and way to turn off my brain for an hour or two when I had some downtime. The 20-30 minutes of play to help wind down after a busy day has been a part of my routine for a while now, and the 99ers were a big piece of that because 20-30 minutes is 20-30 minutes of the total needed to get to 99 :) And having the company and encouragement of the SPF and fellow participants has made it even more enjoyable.

The Unwinked 99er thread has been a great community in itself. Before closing out, I want to give special thanks to @Nano and @Pb_pal who were entrants with me at the start and are still active, plus @ffs, @Bewitch, @ResTTe and @Kinkara who helped keep things lively and have gotten their own 99er(s), plus many others who have contributed to theory crafting and weighed in to answer questions asked in the thread.

Thanks for reading. Cheers!
 
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Truly amazing!

This is easily among the most top-tier, if not THE quintessential milestone ever achieved in SPF history. An incredible group of characters that we have never seen the likes of before, and likely never will see again.

I am glad to have been around from the beginning of Mercy's adventure until now and sharing in all the levels, finds, theorycrafting, and new discoveries along the way. Thank you for sharing the journey with us, it's been a blast!
 
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Fully agreed.

Fantastic stuff. Looking forward to following your next 6-year project, although I wouldn't want to be in your shoes here... you set the bar quite high, as in outer space high. :D
 
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Definitely an amazing achievement! It has been a pleasure watching your progress (and then re-watching it while migrating) and it feels surreal now that the journey is over.

So, first a 7x7+2 sept sept, then an UT 99er sept.... It just begs the question: what's next?
 
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Incredible Sept! One of greatest D2 achievements in my books. After following your progress for nearly six years in the UT99 thread, it's almost surreal to see the Sept completed.
 
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Huge achievement, congrats!
With every thread like this I'm leaning more and more towards starting this journey.
 
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