Lucid, an untwinked Paladin, made it to 99 today. Following a Sorc and a Necro, he is my third completed character in the untwinked 99er challenge. Here’s a group picture of the trio in the character selection screen:
View attachment 52982
Let’s start with a video of his final ding, followed by a rundown of his gear and build(s) and a summary of his journey to 99.
[Highlight]Hitting 99[/Highlight]
A bit of a bumpy finish with Nihl not making room to teleport next to him and Ancients being annoying, but that's how it was.
[Highlight]Gear and Build[/Highlight]
Avenger Setup (98-99)
For his final Nihlathak running stage, he used the following gear and build:
[Highlight]Drops[/Highlight]
Of course there were plenty, these being my personal highlights:
S&Us:
Rare, craft, magic:
Ist+ runewords made:
Ist+ runes remaining:
It was fun to actually utilize many of the HRs he found, thanks to his HR-intensive build for 98-99.
Lowlights:
With that out of the way, let’s briefly summarize his journey.
[Highlight]Starting Out (1-19)[/Highlight]
He was created in November 2018 while I was approaching 99 with my untwinked Necro. He was originally planned to be a melee-only Paladin with the express intention of ending up as a Dreamer. Back then I played him to the beginning of A2 Normal, but there he had to stay for a while. Having quit my old job, I took a small sabbatical and went traveling for a few months starting in early 2019.
I returned in April during RFL 2019, and while I participated with more optimized characters for the first two RFL rounds, I felt like running CS for the third round. Since I had planned to progress him, and given Hammerdins are great CS runners, I decided to level him a bit and try to farm Enigma in between RFL rounds.
[Highlight]Playthrough and Gearing Up (19-90)[/Highlight]
As a consequence, I picked him up again in April and rushed him through the game speedrun style. Admittedly, I quickly ditched the original melee-only idea and went for the lame cookie-cutter Hammerdin build from the get-go to speed things up. Aided by useful drops such as Wizardspike and Viper and great maps, he quickly breezed through to Hell LK. RNG was moreover supportive in providing bases for several runewords he would need in his near future.
He then went on to farm Enigma in LK. This was somewhat unusual as he didn’t get any Sur runes from LK, but three Bers dropped instead in pretty much the expected “runs for Enigma” time frame. Timing was on point, as he was able to make his Enigma and first CtA (+3 BO) just in time for the final RFL round. Making use of further rune drops, he also made his first Hoto and improved to a +6 BO CtA with his second try not long after. (This was particularly welcome as my previous 99ers both needed to make numerous CtAs before getting a good roll.) Other notable drops from LK included a nice Spirit base and his first Combat skiller. Updates on LK runs here, here and here.
After Enigma was completed, he ran Hell Mephisto to muster the typical bread & butter uniques. Having looked for Arachnid Mesh for ages with my 99er Necro, it was a pain to get yet again, with extra heartbreak when an ethereal one dropped early on. He gained 14 levels, farming mostly Mephisto but also a good amount of CS/Diablo, until it finally dropped. Drops by Meph and Diablo moreover included two eth Titan’s, which as a Java aficionado I value quite a lot, apart from the more common staple S&Us like Shako.
[Highlight]Chaos Sanctuary & RFL (90-98)[/Highlight]
His subsequent participation in RFL turned out to be very successful, surprisingly completing the rune drop grail at level 96 by getting Zod, Cham, Jah and several other high runes over the course of two 20h sets. Having won the preceding RFL round with my Travincal Sorc, he nearly secured overall RFL victory, had it not been for @WoRG stealing it away with some out-of-this-world 1.07 luck. CS in general was crazy in terms of HR drops (before, during and after RFL), allowing him to make a second Enigma (kept in stash for corpse recovery purposes) and providing the foundation that would later allow him to transition to the BotD/Dream Avenger build for 98-99.
General updates from around the time of his RFL participation can be found here, here and here, including theorycrafting on run times, XP/h and targets until 98. Some good drops along the way reported here (eth Titan's, Metalgrid).
Altogether, the gearing and leveling from 20 to 97, including playthrough, LK and Meph farming and gearing up, was done within about a month.
He had two deaths in his CS stage at 96 and 97, both rather unnecessary given how tanky he was, but not a big deal either as they merely resulted in a couple of hours of running lost overall. His pace of XP gain in CS was quite fast at a little under 7m XP/h for 97-98.
Upon hitting 97 he made Fortitude for Merc and a 2nd Hoto (nice 40@ roll) and switched from to P8/P7 Diablo runs, as it turns out these provided better XP than P8 2-seal runs. However, after RFL, both my time and desire to play D2 went up and down for a while, so his progress slowed down a bit. In the next couple of months, he found a couple of upgrades on his way to 98 with a second Combat skiller and two OA skillers. Generally, S&U drops from CS felt a bit lackluster, considering the amount of time spent there and solid MF. The most notable exception was a nice Griffon’s Eye (14/20) shortly before 98.
[Highlight]Switch to Dream/Vengeance Build[/Highlight]
My previous 99ers switched build and targets around for the final stage, and Lucid would do the same. Despite Hammerdin P1/P7 Diablo runs being a solid 98-99 option for Paladins, I figured Nihlathak would outperform it in terms of XP/h. So I tested a couple of options with twinked characters to simulate what I could do with Lucid. While I originally expected to end up with a Smiter build, the short range was a downside with Nihlathak being always crowded by his buddies. In the end I concluded an Avenger using Dreams and a Faith Merc was his best option for 98-99.
Apart from following through on his original Dreamer idea in the end, the build was a great fit for Nihl running, with Dreams providing both great damage and safety via built-in Confuse CtC. Moreover, this provided the single best reason to make an ultimately classic eBotD BA with the Zod he found – this being one of the few builds where BotD is ideal.
He had most of the ingredients ready to go, including an eth BA on which he used his last socket quest (having used the other two on Shako and Andy’s). The only thing missing was a decent Dream shield base, which he obtained via a dedicated racking session in Act 3. Then it was time to drop his Zod and three Jahs to make BotD, two Dreams and Faith. You know, typical untwinked stuff.
He completed the transition to an Avenger build by using his last quest respec, and was ready to finish in style.
[Highlight]Nihlathak (98-99)[/Highlight]
With his new build he went on to run Nihlathak, which started out nicely with Earth Shifter, Griswold’s Valor and Azurewrath dropping on his way to 98.1, as well as decent blues while moving to 98.25. Shortly after, he found his third Combat skiller alongside a couple of HRs (98.35).
However, he then was shelved again for several months as I took another break from D2 – RL was rather busy, new job and colleagues, and generally having gotten a bit tired of the game. I picked him up again earlier this month with the aim of finishing him this year still. In a somewhat spoiled comeback, he immediately died thanks to his driver being a bit rusty. We recovered the body though. Getting back into the routine, he then quickly moved got to 98.5, picking up a Nova Ormus along the way. With his new momentum he kept going and pushed to 98.65 shortly after, getting a small upgrade with a perfect Mara’s. At ~98.8, he finally got his first and only +1 ring (SoJ) while making his way towards the final ding, cashing in the Ancients quest 40m shy of 99 to complete his journey.
Overall, Nihl runs were smooth for the most part, largely thanks to the built-in Confuse procs provided by Dream and his ability to focus down Nihl quickly. There was one death during the first couple million XP not costing meaningful XP, and the second one mentioned above upon returning to D2 after a break. Apart from that he was very safe with very few NDEs (none below 1k HP IIRC). For the majority of the 98-99 stretch, he averaged some 3.5-3.6m XP/h, which was similar to my Necro numbers but slower than my Sorc. Viper spawns had to be S&E’ed more often than on my previous 99ers. Later into the level I stopped casting Holy Shield entirely to maximize Confuse procs, which reduced S&Es and sped things up a bit. Here’s a batch of Nihl runs to give you an idea of the gameplay:
[Highlight]Conclusions[/Highlight]
While in absolute terms his journey seemed long due to numerous breaks, this was by far the fastest of my three untwinked 99ers regarding time spent in-game. Overall, he did some 230-250 hours of actual running – estimated based on approx. 220 hours according to his run times, but considering deaths adding some 7-8 hours and not being fully focused all the time. Unfortunately run counter doesn't work on Mac so I can't give 100% exact numbers. But here’s a brief overview of his individual stages and time spent on each based on frequently timing his runs/XP gain:
I was surprised how powerful and fast Paladin is for untwinked 99. He really competes with Sorc for the possibly fastest class IMO, provided Enigma doesn’t take unusually long to farm. Once he has Enigma, the damage output of Hammerdins is kind of OP, without any special gear requirements whatsoever. A well geared Sorc may reign supreme regarding 2-seal P8 runs in CS and Nihlathak later on. But with just runewords and otherwise basic gear, his CS efficiency is pretty close to a fully decked Blizzy, and there is no stronger build for P8/P7 CS/Diablo runs (97-98). He also turned out to be a respectable Nihl runner with the Dream/Vengeance build. RNG was kind in providing Lucid with ideal gear for that along the way, but it wouldn't have been much slower with a more typical approach and items as well.
Currently I have no further plans for him. I think his current gear and build is pretty cool and unique, so probably I’ll leave him untouched for a while. I’ll be using some of his drops in my sept of characters using only items found by untwinked 99ers, and of course the traditional leftover rune dump will follow shortly.
I think my next D2 untwinked project will be finally making a Guardian and collecting some HC stuff. Apart from that, probably working on a few more fun builds I have lined up and generally spending some time with twinked characters.
At the moment I’m pretty sure this will be my last 99er, but you never know!
Thanks for reading everyone, and of course special thanks to the untwinked 99er crowd, past and present. In particular @PhineasB, @T72on1, @Pb_pal and @Neksja had previously run with Paladins in the 99er challenge, providing helpful information for this character.
Happy holidays everyone, thanks for reading and supporting along the way, and see you around!
View attachment 52982
Let’s start with a video of his final ding, followed by a rundown of his gear and build(s) and a summary of his journey to 99.
[Highlight]Hitting 99[/Highlight]
A bit of a bumpy finish with Nihl not making room to teleport next to him and Ancients being annoying, but that's how it was.
[Highlight]Gear and Build[/Highlight]
Avenger Setup (98-99)
For his final Nihlathak running stage, he used the following gear and build:
Code:
‘Breath of the Dying’ eth Berserker Axe (363 ED)
‘Dream’ Grand Crown (28 FHR, 19@, 25 MF)
‘Dream’ Sacred Targe (30 FHR, 50@ in 37@ base, 13 MF)
‘Enigma’ Breast Plate
Mara’s Kaleidoscope (30@)
Ravenfrost (250/20)
Blood craft ring with 53 life, 11@ + 40 CR, 33 PR
Arachnid Mesh
Magefist
War Traveler (39 MF)
Switch: +6 BO CtA CS, 35 FCR ‘Spirit’ Sacred Targe (43@ base)
Merc (A1 Cold): ‘Faith’ DB (2/14), ‘Delirium’ Bone Visage, Gladiator’s Bane (unsocketed)
Inventory: 3x PComb skillers (FHR/max dmg), 2x Sharp GCs (one Vita 37), Gheed’s, various life/resist charms
Build: 20 Vengeance, 20 Resist Lightning, 20 Resist Fire, 18 Conviction, 10 Salvation, 10 Holy Shield, 1 pre-reqs
Corpse recovery kit: ‘Enigma’ Light Plate, Spirit, ‘Oath’ (336 ED) eth Scourge, SoE 8/15, +2/str circlet, Raven, LL/ML amulet[Highlight]Drops[/Highlight]
Of course there were plenty, these being my personal highlights:
S&Us:
eth Andariel’s Visage
2x eth Titan’s Revenge
Griffon’s Eye with 14/20 roll
Nova Ormus
Fire Ball Ormus
199 ED eth Hone Sundan
Perfect Wisp Projector
Perfect Ravenfroat
Perfect Mara’s
5x (!) Metalgrid
2x 3os Head Hunter's Glory
Azurewrath
27 Rainbow Facets
2x eth Titan’s Revenge
Griffon’s Eye with 14/20 roll
Nova Ormus
Fire Ball Ormus
199 ED eth Hone Sundan
Perfect Wisp Projector
Perfect Ravenfroat
Perfect Mara’s
5x (!) Metalgrid
2x 3os Head Hunter's Glory
Azurewrath
27 Rainbow Facets
Rare, craft, magic:
2 Necro/20 FCR/life/PR circlet
2 Paladin/20 FCR circlet
38 ED RJoF
1/20 Sorc amulet
20 FCR, LL, Str amulet
56 skillers, 7 with life
2 Paladin/20 FCR circlet
38 ED RJoF
1/20 Sorc amulet
20 FCR, LL, Str amulet
56 skillers, 7 with life
Ist+ runewords made:
Code:
1x BotD
2x Enigma
2x Dream
1x Faith
2x CtA
1x Fortitude
1x Death
2x Hoto
1x DeliriumIst+ runes remaining:
Code:
2x Ist
3x Gul
1x Vex
3x Ohm
1x Lo
1x Sur
1x Jah
1x ChamIt was fun to actually utilize many of the HRs he found, thanks to his HR-intensive build for 98-99.
Lowlights:
- Not finding a +1 ring until ~98.8 (SoJ) – my two other 99ers found 2 (Necro) and 5 (Sorc) SoJ/BKWB
- Not crafting a single +2 Paladin/10+ FCR amulet. He crafted 336 caster amulets – yes I kept track and overall I expected more on this front. :/
- Not finding my last grailer is OK since that’s Tyrael’s but neither did he find any truly special S&Us – and in particular by far the lowest amount of TC87 of my three untwinked 99ers. (He found many very useful ones that actually provided upgrades to my cast of characters, though, so I guess I can’t really complain all things considered...)
With that out of the way, let’s briefly summarize his journey.
[Highlight]Starting Out (1-19)[/Highlight]
He was created in November 2018 while I was approaching 99 with my untwinked Necro. He was originally planned to be a melee-only Paladin with the express intention of ending up as a Dreamer. Back then I played him to the beginning of A2 Normal, but there he had to stay for a while. Having quit my old job, I took a small sabbatical and went traveling for a few months starting in early 2019.
I returned in April during RFL 2019, and while I participated with more optimized characters for the first two RFL rounds, I felt like running CS for the third round. Since I had planned to progress him, and given Hammerdins are great CS runners, I decided to level him a bit and try to farm Enigma in between RFL rounds.
[Highlight]Playthrough and Gearing Up (19-90)[/Highlight]
As a consequence, I picked him up again in April and rushed him through the game speedrun style. Admittedly, I quickly ditched the original melee-only idea and went for the lame cookie-cutter Hammerdin build from the get-go to speed things up. Aided by useful drops such as Wizardspike and Viper and great maps, he quickly breezed through to Hell LK. RNG was moreover supportive in providing bases for several runewords he would need in his near future.
He then went on to farm Enigma in LK. This was somewhat unusual as he didn’t get any Sur runes from LK, but three Bers dropped instead in pretty much the expected “runs for Enigma” time frame. Timing was on point, as he was able to make his Enigma and first CtA (+3 BO) just in time for the final RFL round. Making use of further rune drops, he also made his first Hoto and improved to a +6 BO CtA with his second try not long after. (This was particularly welcome as my previous 99ers both needed to make numerous CtAs before getting a good roll.) Other notable drops from LK included a nice Spirit base and his first Combat skiller. Updates on LK runs here, here and here.
After Enigma was completed, he ran Hell Mephisto to muster the typical bread & butter uniques. Having looked for Arachnid Mesh for ages with my 99er Necro, it was a pain to get yet again, with extra heartbreak when an ethereal one dropped early on. He gained 14 levels, farming mostly Mephisto but also a good amount of CS/Diablo, until it finally dropped. Drops by Meph and Diablo moreover included two eth Titan’s, which as a Java aficionado I value quite a lot, apart from the more common staple S&Us like Shako.
[Highlight]Chaos Sanctuary & RFL (90-98)[/Highlight]
His subsequent participation in RFL turned out to be very successful, surprisingly completing the rune drop grail at level 96 by getting Zod, Cham, Jah and several other high runes over the course of two 20h sets. Having won the preceding RFL round with my Travincal Sorc, he nearly secured overall RFL victory, had it not been for @WoRG stealing it away with some out-of-this-world 1.07 luck.
CS in general was crazy in terms of HR drops (before, during and after RFL), allowing him to make a second Enigma (kept in stash for corpse recovery purposes) and providing the foundation that would later allow him to transition to the BotD/Dream Avenger build for 98-99.General updates from around the time of his RFL participation can be found here, here and here, including theorycrafting on run times, XP/h and targets until 98. Some good drops along the way reported here (eth Titan's, Metalgrid).
Altogether, the gearing and leveling from 20 to 97, including playthrough, LK and Meph farming and gearing up, was done within about a month.
He had two deaths in his CS stage at 96 and 97, both rather unnecessary given how tanky he was, but not a big deal either as they merely resulted in a couple of hours of running lost overall. His pace of XP gain in CS was quite fast at a little under 7m XP/h for 97-98.
Upon hitting 97 he made Fortitude for Merc and a 2nd Hoto (nice 40@ roll) and switched from to P8/P7 Diablo runs, as it turns out these provided better XP than P8 2-seal runs. However, after RFL, both my time and desire to play D2 went up and down for a while, so his progress slowed down a bit. In the next couple of months, he found a couple of upgrades on his way to 98 with a second Combat skiller and two OA skillers. Generally, S&U drops from CS felt a bit lackluster, considering the amount of time spent there and solid MF. The most notable exception was a nice Griffon’s Eye (14/20) shortly before 98.
[Highlight]Switch to Dream/Vengeance Build[/Highlight]
My previous 99ers switched build and targets around for the final stage, and Lucid would do the same. Despite Hammerdin P1/P7 Diablo runs being a solid 98-99 option for Paladins, I figured Nihlathak would outperform it in terms of XP/h. So I tested a couple of options with twinked characters to simulate what I could do with Lucid. While I originally expected to end up with a Smiter build, the short range was a downside with Nihlathak being always crowded by his buddies. In the end I concluded an Avenger using Dreams and a Faith Merc was his best option for 98-99.
Apart from following through on his original Dreamer idea in the end, the build was a great fit for Nihl running, with Dreams providing both great damage and safety via built-in Confuse CtC. Moreover, this provided the single best reason to make an ultimately classic eBotD BA with the Zod he found – this being one of the few builds where BotD is ideal.
He had most of the ingredients ready to go, including an eth BA on which he used his last socket quest (having used the other two on Shako and Andy’s). The only thing missing was a decent Dream shield base, which he obtained via a dedicated racking session in Act 3. Then it was time to drop his Zod and three Jahs to make BotD, two Dreams and Faith. You know, typical untwinked stuff.
He completed the transition to an Avenger build by using his last quest respec, and was ready to finish in style.
[Highlight]Nihlathak (98-99)[/Highlight]
With his new build he went on to run Nihlathak, which started out nicely with Earth Shifter, Griswold’s Valor and Azurewrath dropping on his way to 98.1, as well as decent blues while moving to 98.25. Shortly after, he found his third Combat skiller alongside a couple of HRs (98.35).
However, he then was shelved again for several months as I took another break from D2 – RL was rather busy, new job and colleagues, and generally having gotten a bit tired of the game. I picked him up again earlier this month with the aim of finishing him this year still. In a somewhat spoiled comeback, he immediately died thanks to his driver being a bit rusty. We recovered the body though. Getting back into the routine, he then quickly moved got to 98.5, picking up a Nova Ormus along the way. With his new momentum he kept going and pushed to 98.65 shortly after, getting a small upgrade with a perfect Mara’s. At ~98.8, he finally got his first and only +1 ring (SoJ) while making his way towards the final ding, cashing in the Ancients quest 40m shy of 99 to complete his journey.
Overall, Nihl runs were smooth for the most part, largely thanks to the built-in Confuse procs provided by Dream and his ability to focus down Nihl quickly. There was one death during the first couple million XP not costing meaningful XP, and the second one mentioned above upon returning to D2 after a break. Apart from that he was very safe with very few NDEs (none below 1k HP IIRC). For the majority of the 98-99 stretch, he averaged some 3.5-3.6m XP/h, which was similar to my Necro numbers but slower than my Sorc. Viper spawns had to be S&E’ed more often than on my previous 99ers. Later into the level I stopped casting Holy Shield entirely to maximize Confuse procs, which reduced S&Es and sped things up a bit. Here’s a batch of Nihl runs to give you an idea of the gameplay:
[Highlight]Conclusions[/Highlight]
While in absolute terms his journey seemed long due to numerous breaks, this was by far the fastest of my three untwinked 99ers regarding time spent in-game. Overall, he did some 230-250 hours of actual running – estimated based on approx. 220 hours according to his run times, but considering deaths adding some 7-8 hours and not being fully focused all the time. Unfortunately run counter doesn't work on Mac so I can't give 100% exact numbers. But here’s a brief overview of his individual stages and time spent on each based on frequently timing his runs/XP gain:
Code:
~7-8h: Playthrough to Hell LK (1-76)
~25-30h: Farming Enigma in LK (76)
~20h: Farming Meph and CS (76-90)
~45h: CS two seal runs (90-97)
~40h: CS/Diablo runs (97-98)
~75h: Nihlathak & Ancients (98-99)I was surprised how powerful and fast Paladin is for untwinked 99. He really competes with Sorc for the possibly fastest class IMO, provided Enigma doesn’t take unusually long to farm. Once he has Enigma, the damage output of Hammerdins is kind of OP, without any special gear requirements whatsoever. A well geared Sorc may reign supreme regarding 2-seal P8 runs in CS and Nihlathak later on. But with just runewords and otherwise basic gear, his CS efficiency is pretty close to a fully decked Blizzy, and there is no stronger build for P8/P7 CS/Diablo runs (97-98). He also turned out to be a respectable Nihl runner with the Dream/Vengeance build. RNG was kind in providing Lucid with ideal gear for that along the way, but it wouldn't have been much slower with a more typical approach and items as well.
Currently I have no further plans for him. I think his current gear and build is pretty cool and unique, so probably I’ll leave him untouched for a while.
I’ll be using some of his drops in my sept of characters using only items found by untwinked 99ers, and of course the traditional leftover rune dump will follow shortly.I think my next D2 untwinked project will be finally making a Guardian and collecting some HC stuff. Apart from that, probably working on a few more fun builds I have lined up and generally spending some time with twinked characters.
At the moment I’m pretty sure this will be my last 99er, but you never know!
Thanks for reading everyone, and of course special thanks to the untwinked 99er crowd, past and present. In particular @PhineasB, @T72on1, @Pb_pal and @Neksja had previously run with Paladins in the 99er challenge, providing helpful information for this character.
Happy holidays everyone, thanks for reading and supporting along the way, and see you around!
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