purplelocust
New member
Duchess Halimede, untwinked HC Classic passivezon
[highlight]Story: [/highlight]
Halimede is a character from a Classic tourney. I added the restriction that she can only put points into the passive/magic tree. She has alternately been a daggerzon and mostly lately a Woestave-azon. She's just beaten NM Diablo and I think I'll take a break from her for a bit. I've also added the restriction that she may not use any rare gear (so sets and uniques only), but she had used rares, magics and white gear earlier in the game. Generally in Classic, the best gear is rares, so that is an actual significant limitation! Woestave has a bunch of juicy mods, just not much damage, and it worked out well in conjunction with a strong Valk.
She didn't use ATMA or GoMule, so the tiny stash size in Classic was an annoyance.
[highlight]Stats:[/highlight]
Level 48
STR: 78
DEX: 74
VIT: 213
damage with normal attack: 24-112
AR: 2733 (63% chance to hit NM Diablo)
def: 206
life 878
resists in NM: -5/35/-5/-5
[highlight]Skills:[/highlight]
19 in Valk
2 in Decoy
7/5/4 in Dodge/Avoid/Evade
11 in Critical Strike
5 in Penetrate
[highlight]Gear:[/highlight]
Helm: Duskdeep (15 resist all)
jewelry: Angelic amulet/ring/ring
Weapon: Woestave 23%ED, 14-55 damage, 50% OW, PMH, blinds, freezes, slows by 50%, -50 defense per hit
gloves: Sigon's gage
armor: Twitchthroe
belt: Bladebuckle, FHR and stats mainly
boots: Sigon's Sabot
alternate weapon/shield combos: Jade Tan Do + Sigon's shield, Jade Tan Do + Swordback Hold.
[highlight]Gameplay:[/highlight]
The start was pretty slow going (documented in the Classic tourney thread) and I got impatient waiting for a Valk before defeating normal Diablo. She did have good MF from the full Angelic set and had good drops from relatively early on. The Jade Tan Do was a nice weapon for quite a long time, and right about the time it was becoming useless when when the Valk came and then it was better going. I had been playing largely at /players 1 until I got the Valk in early NM, and then switched to progressively higher player counts through NM, which boosted the levelling speed nicely.
From the beginning, I'd tried to figure out how Halimede could help the Valk- the main ideas were crushing blow, open wounds, and slow. So I was hoping for Goblin Toe (no luck there) Cleglaw's Gloves (no luck there) and Swordback Hold (found that but not until after Woestave.) Woestave is an interesting weapon and Halimede has made good use of it with all its nice mods. I'm partial to it as a merc weapon in LoD but I'd never built a character around it. And I didn't know that it would drop, of course!
Further along in NM, Woestave worked wonders.
I set aside a big chunk of potential playtime for the NM Chaos Sanctuary, but actually it went pretty smoothly. I did do it on /players 1, though. A few things:
OK's don't seem to have a "leaking blood" animation. At first I was worried that open wounds didn't work on them, but indeed their health would decline it was just that you couldn't see it squirting out of them.
Iron Maiden in HC with a melee character and no backup plan is a big scary thing. Her attack rate is pretty slow, so I counted on being able to hear it before dying. If I kept my red ball full, my computations showed that I wouldn't in a single hit, even a max damage critical one. But one is never quite sure! So I would run around to the back of the pack and whack the OK, hoping not to get cursed with IM. I did lose three Valks in there to IM, and I did have one swing while IM'd (which took less than 1/3 of the red ball) so that turned out OK. There were a couple of times when Halimede was IM'd but the Valk wasn't, so Halimede just stood around watching the Valk during that time.
The Valk was pretty much killing monsters in one shot in the CS, on /players 1. And Halimede was doing pretty well there as well- killing an OK would generally take just a little more than 1 swing (plus waiting for OW to run its course, which was the main source of damage.)
The seals went well- no problems there, the slow on Woestave was quite useful. One of the mods on DeSeis was "Cursed", not a problem- I'd rather be amped than IM'd, of course!
For Diablo, I decided to go with a skill shrine (for possibly resummoning the Valk) instead of a lightning resist shrine. Surfing for shrines in earlier acts was a pain as it would mean losing the Valk, and I wanted my Valk to be cast while on a +skill shrine effect.
It worked out well- the Valk could tank the lightning hose no problem, and didn't die once in that battle. Diablo was slowed and not much of a threat, though it did take a while and I did go back to town at least once for a breather.
[highlight]Plans:[/highlight]
I think I'll take a break before starting her off into Hell. Her resists are terrible and I don't see any good means of improving them without allowing rares at this point. And juggling gear is a huge pain with a tiny stash and no ATMA/GoMule. So I'm worried about a Deeds to a Hell quill rat, actually... At this point, this does improve my progress in the Title Grail, with a Duchess instead of a Countess so I'll need to update that.
[highlight]Screenshots:[/highlight]
LCS
Battling Izzy with a big swing
Waiting out IM while the Valk is Weakened
Thanks, Valk, for sitting in that lightning hose
Diablo dies in NM
[highlight]Story: [/highlight]
Halimede is a character from a Classic tourney. I added the restriction that she can only put points into the passive/magic tree. She has alternately been a daggerzon and mostly lately a Woestave-azon. She's just beaten NM Diablo and I think I'll take a break from her for a bit. I've also added the restriction that she may not use any rare gear (so sets and uniques only), but she had used rares, magics and white gear earlier in the game. Generally in Classic, the best gear is rares, so that is an actual significant limitation! Woestave has a bunch of juicy mods, just not much damage, and it worked out well in conjunction with a strong Valk.
She didn't use ATMA or GoMule, so the tiny stash size in Classic was an annoyance.
[highlight]Stats:[/highlight]
Level 48
STR: 78
DEX: 74
VIT: 213
damage with normal attack: 24-112
AR: 2733 (63% chance to hit NM Diablo)
def: 206
life 878
resists in NM: -5/35/-5/-5
[highlight]Skills:[/highlight]
19 in Valk
2 in Decoy
7/5/4 in Dodge/Avoid/Evade
11 in Critical Strike
5 in Penetrate
[highlight]Gear:[/highlight]
Helm: Duskdeep (15 resist all)
jewelry: Angelic amulet/ring/ring
Weapon: Woestave 23%ED, 14-55 damage, 50% OW, PMH, blinds, freezes, slows by 50%, -50 defense per hit
gloves: Sigon's gage
armor: Twitchthroe
belt: Bladebuckle, FHR and stats mainly
boots: Sigon's Sabot
alternate weapon/shield combos: Jade Tan Do + Sigon's shield, Jade Tan Do + Swordback Hold.
[highlight]Gameplay:[/highlight]
The start was pretty slow going (documented in the Classic tourney thread) and I got impatient waiting for a Valk before defeating normal Diablo. She did have good MF from the full Angelic set and had good drops from relatively early on. The Jade Tan Do was a nice weapon for quite a long time, and right about the time it was becoming useless when when the Valk came and then it was better going. I had been playing largely at /players 1 until I got the Valk in early NM, and then switched to progressively higher player counts through NM, which boosted the levelling speed nicely.
From the beginning, I'd tried to figure out how Halimede could help the Valk- the main ideas were crushing blow, open wounds, and slow. So I was hoping for Goblin Toe (no luck there) Cleglaw's Gloves (no luck there) and Swordback Hold (found that but not until after Woestave.) Woestave is an interesting weapon and Halimede has made good use of it with all its nice mods. I'm partial to it as a merc weapon in LoD but I'd never built a character around it. And I didn't know that it would drop, of course!
Further along in NM, Woestave worked wonders.
I set aside a big chunk of potential playtime for the NM Chaos Sanctuary, but actually it went pretty smoothly. I did do it on /players 1, though. A few things:
OK's don't seem to have a "leaking blood" animation. At first I was worried that open wounds didn't work on them, but indeed their health would decline it was just that you couldn't see it squirting out of them.
Iron Maiden in HC with a melee character and no backup plan is a big scary thing. Her attack rate is pretty slow, so I counted on being able to hear it before dying. If I kept my red ball full, my computations showed that I wouldn't in a single hit, even a max damage critical one. But one is never quite sure! So I would run around to the back of the pack and whack the OK, hoping not to get cursed with IM. I did lose three Valks in there to IM, and I did have one swing while IM'd (which took less than 1/3 of the red ball) so that turned out OK. There were a couple of times when Halimede was IM'd but the Valk wasn't, so Halimede just stood around watching the Valk during that time.
The Valk was pretty much killing monsters in one shot in the CS, on /players 1. And Halimede was doing pretty well there as well- killing an OK would generally take just a little more than 1 swing (plus waiting for OW to run its course, which was the main source of damage.)
The seals went well- no problems there, the slow on Woestave was quite useful. One of the mods on DeSeis was "Cursed", not a problem- I'd rather be amped than IM'd, of course!
For Diablo, I decided to go with a skill shrine (for possibly resummoning the Valk) instead of a lightning resist shrine. Surfing for shrines in earlier acts was a pain as it would mean losing the Valk, and I wanted my Valk to be cast while on a +skill shrine effect.
It worked out well- the Valk could tank the lightning hose no problem, and didn't die once in that battle. Diablo was slowed and not much of a threat, though it did take a while and I did go back to town at least once for a breather.
[highlight]Plans:[/highlight]
I think I'll take a break before starting her off into Hell. Her resists are terrible and I don't see any good means of improving them without allowing rares at this point. And juggling gear is a huge pain with a tiny stash and no ATMA/GoMule. So I'm worried about a Deeds to a Hell quill rat, actually... At this point, this does improve my progress in the Title Grail, with a Duchess instead of a Countess so I'll need to update that.
[highlight]Screenshots:[/highlight]
LCS
Battling Izzy with a big swing
Waiting out IM while the Valk is Weakened
Thanks, Valk, for sitting in that lightning hose
Diablo dies in NM