Finding the Balance: MF/RF Tournament (Signup & Running)

[CaseyJones]

Category 1 (Baal)
--------------------------------
J-Dog
Pax1990
CaseyJones
--------------------------------
Category 2 (everything else)
--------------------------------
ffs
ResTTe
Luhkoh
Babyhell
Pb_pal
Nano
Excalibur
maxicek
Apila
PhineasB
art_vandelay
Peytron
Tenecabo
--------------------------------

Going to run some P1/P3 Baal in non MF gear on my Nova Sorc for XPing really. Not sure I will even finish a set but hey, if a Tyreals and a couple Sur plus runes drop I won't be too bad off Mainly trying for level 95+

 

[Babyhell]

I'm three hours in and it's been fun. So far it's been around 1 qualifier / 15 minutes of running. Running Baal feels nostalgic. I'm pretty sure this is the rarest drop so far though:
View attachment 60774

Are you talking about the Oil potion or the eth Monarch that rolled 4os max def after e-bug?

Spoiler

Nice efficiency btw, amongst the 80 qualifiers you may drop a great score in the end. Hopefully I am running the other category

 

[Pax1990]

Well I am about 4 hours in. Exp progression is going really well. My Barb is level 93 with 40% to level 94 left. But the drops are terrible as expected running with only 92 mf. So far I found 5 qualifiers and they are low pointers ofc.

 

[Babyhell]

So here i am after 7.33 hours in.

In the end, decided to run a bit of LK for now, and will most probably run CS with Tournamenteress and AT with TraviRunnerS - map is not fantastic, but i'll see.

Will continue until i got my valuable drops in order, then re-run areas with higher pointer expectations if time allows. Hope to see at least all planned areas!

Progress table

Location​	Character​	Valuable pointer found​
The Pits	ZerkAndDestroy	Yes (S/U)
Travincal	TraviRunnerS	Yes (Rune)
Pindle	ZerkAndDestroy	Yes (S/U)
Cows	LightningRiderS	Yes (S/U)
LK	Tournamenteress	No (100 runs)
AT	TraviRunnerS	Not started
CS	Tournamenteress	Not started

 

[Swamigoon]

Joining late, but count me in for category 2. I'll probably run some LK superchests with my new 'zerker, some LK and Pindle with my dancer, and some AT with my blizz sorc. Hoping for nice runes, but I won't begrudge nifty S/Us if they happen along.

Category 1 (Baal)
--------------------------------
J-Dog
Pax1990
CaseyJones
--------------------------------
Category 2 (everything else)
--------------------------------
ffs
ResTTe
Luhkoh
Babyhell
Pb_pal
Nano
Excalibur
maxicek
Apila
PhineasB
art_vandelay
Peytron
Tenecabo
Swamigoon
--------------------------------

 

[ffs]

Nice, keep those signups coming, plenty of time left to do multiple 20h sets even!

Of course after complaining the other day finally got a couple of decent drops. More than anything magic/rare troll drops though, 4x Sacred Armor and 3x Unearthed Wand.

Now 7.5 hours in. Continued with Necro to get him to 100 runs and then again Nova Sorc for 200 runs with her overall. Then followed it up with 100 Singer runs. Gameplay with him is super relaxed and he runs a good Pit map averaging 8+ boss packs. Running with Beast as @Luhkoh suggested some time ago, I really like that approach. Run times are around ~61 seconds, about 4 seconds slower than with Berserker on the same (relatively big) map. I'll be going for at least 200 runs with him as well. After that not sure yet.

 

[PhineasB]

Hit the halfway point for the set, with 4 hours in AS with HC trapper and the rest with Untwinked 99er Druid in the Pit. Neither the XP progress nor the drops are spectacular, but they have occurred, so mission accomplished so far. I expect to finish up the set with the Windy, which on current pace would see him close to 95.7 (starting at level 95, so 16 hours of progress into the level).

 

[Babyhell]

Edit2: after an hour of CS with Tournamenteress (clvl 94 vs 87 for TravincalRunnerS), still no valuable pointer - but there were some low S/U pointers, no noticeable rune.
As cold immune, De Seis is the real plaque, limitating run to p3 to have a chance to handle him with merc only when he gets Lightning immune too in a reasonable amount of time. Maybe i should go for a Fire/Cold respec...

Anyway, this is now officially the mid-mark update (10h03mn). So... let's go to the end of the line!

****
Edit: table updated after 30mns in AT /p3... TraviRunnerS had been somewhat efficient! She found the two top pointers for now on top of that between Travincal and AT... I wonder if i should go run CS with her now xD

****
8.33 hours in: LK is passed after 200 runs!

Not a fantastic scorer, but still the best of the LK runs, came run 190. Decided to complete to 200, which gave me another valuable scorer on run 197, but right above the limit I set for this pass.

Around 170 got a unique qualifier, no big points here but still a useful tool with quite nice stats, and the first nice rune few runs after (but below the limit).

So anyway, LK is checked, now on to AT or CS later today... and after that Pits. Can't wait to play with @saracen85's amulet giveaway

Sidenote: this session allows me to tell that i do have my 5 qualifiers for either MFO or RFL. A milestone too

Also, yet another disappointment with my 80% Battle boots rack:

An ethereal one, so, still a grailer... kinda -_-

Progress table

Location​	Character​	Valuable pointer found​
The Pits	ZerkAndDestroy	Yes (S/U)
Travincal	TraviRunnerS	Yes (Rune)
Pindle	ZerkAndDestroy	Yes (S/U)
Cows	LightningRiderS	Yes (S/U)
LK	Tournamenteress	Yes (Rune, 200 runs)
AT	TraviRunnerS	Yes (S/U)
CS	Tournamenteress	No

 

[ffs]

Thanks for the teasing updates @Babyhell

Been pushing a good bit further, too. After 200 Singer runs I went for 200 Fire Ball Sorc runs in AT. Then I took a break to find an acceptable AT map for Conc Barb. Dropped a Sur while rolling maps without timer running... Of course that would have been the only decent drop in 4 hours or so... #complainingagain

Except for @Gripphon I haven't seen anyone trying to push AT Barb, which I think is a shame the more I run with him. First 50 runs on new map gave me an efficiency score of 1.67, second only to Pit Berserkers... so far at least. I had similar scores with my first Pit Berserker attempts, so who knows where I can take him. Some things are for sure: Lots of potential with this build, lots of gear/build options to test, and lots of theorycrafting to be done.

Might just run him for the remainder of the set, learning and tweaking him along the way. Curious as to where he stands with a few more hundred runs worth of experience.

 

[Pb_pal]

Great updates folks!

As for me, I'm plugging along nicely with the HC CS Hammerdin so far. My (very loose) plan so far is to run him in the CS and get some rune drops, and then switch to my Pit Necro to bolster the S/U end of things.

So far it's not working, but at least the Hammerdin is still alive.

Good luck all!

 

[Babyhell]

Slightly more than 11 hours in... time to step-up!

Let's raise expectations a bit...and focus on serious pointers now. Pits tiiiiime!!!

Spoiler

Alone at home on a non-working day... I take some advance on my tournament planning ^^

Progress table - complete

Location​	Character​	Valuable pointer found​
The Pits	ZerkAndDestroy	Yes (S/U)
Travincal	TraviRunnerS	Yes (Rune)
Pindle	ZerkAndDestroy	Yes (S/U)
Cows	LightningRiderS	Yes (S/U)
LK	Tournamenteress	Yes (Rune, 200 runs)
AT	TraviRunnerS	Yes (S/U)
CS	Tournamenteress	Yes (S/U)

Upgrades found
0

 

[Tenecabo]

I decided that since I'd have a hard time completing 20 hours (crazy work schedule for the next weeks!), I would run my clock for the time spent pulling my javazon through Act 2 & 3 of hell. Hell Meph dropped me a grailer, never found in all my years of playing d2. I look at it, figuring, "hey, this must be worth some good points!" I look at the S&U score table... look for the name, I find it!!! Oh wait, no, that's another item with a similar name.... wait a minute... it's not there??? *dies internally*

On a different note I just found out none of the unique jewelry has a score. FML

 

[Luhkoh]

@ffs I think the problem with AT barb is its just like, why not play pitzerker instead? Doesn't seem quite different enough to be worth the variety itself. Unless ofc you just love mf barb and want more. And this is from someone with a thread called "variety grailing . Plus it seems like its taking a character who's already taxing to play and adding another step to the process (conc). At least this is why I've never been particularly interested in playing one. Is there anything about quirks of the gameplay or just feel of the gameplay I might not think of that makes him fun to play in a way thats different from pitzerker? Curious in case I should try one in the future.

 

[ResTTe]

I am farming CS with my UT sorc. Currently at 10 hours done for the first set. I had some ups and downs, but drops are rather trash. My exp is pretty good though, broke 97 1/3 today. Still 2,5 weeks left, so maybe something extraordinary will happen, who knows.

Running AT barb was something i had in mind at some point. Would only do it to set a new record though, cause there is no point in playing some worse char (comparing to pitzerker). The char itself is quite interesting with all those build options, but i just decided not to play it in the end. Maybe i should rethink it when i'm done with my sorc. It honestly would be more interesting if AT barb was better than pitzerker. Way more stuff to look into imo.

After rerolling my pitmap, i was struck with a thought that i could have respeced my barb from pitzerker to singer and tried to improve the singer score. I don't like caster builds that much, so maybe it's better i didn't do it. Can still do it in the future and what's nice is the fact that my barb is still untwinked. Don't even think i will twink him. Maybe if someone will push pits too much ^^

 

[maxicek]

Just over 5 hours in. Score is almost out of the embarrassing bracket.

 

[ffs]

@ffs I think the problem with AT barb is its just like, why not play pitzerker instead? Doesn't seem quite different enough to be worth the variety itself. Unless ofc you just love mf barb and want more. And this is from someone with a thread called "variety grailing . Plus it seems like its taking a character who's already taxing to play and adding another step to the process (conc). At least this is why I've never been particularly interested in playing one. Is there anything about quirks of the gameplay or just feel of the gameplay I might not think of that makes him fun to play in a way thats different from pitzerker? Curious in case I should try one in the future.

The "why not just play Pitzerker" point is one that I've made myself in the 101 thread... but that part will go out ASAP, because I've totally changed my mind about him. I've been dipping to 1.55 adjeff territory a few times now... and that's having played him for 5-6 hours in my life.

Currently at 550 runs with him, split into 50 run sets to compare various gearing approaches. Also respec'ed him 3 times along the way and will likely use at least one more. But I can already say at this point that he's developing into an AT Barb that barely resembles the previously tried approaches, and in my case at least delivers better results.

So yeah, fresh build incoming, prepare for a more detailed write-up soon. Going to test more things first though before laying it all out at this point only to later discover improvements here or there.

It's super rewarding to play and tweak this char, that's for sure. AT Barb is very complicated, to some degree that's also regarding the gameplay yes, but in particular all the things you have to consider and balance when running AT and the gearing restrictions imposed by it. The area and monster types pose many problems that need to be addressed, and it's a really nice challenge to do that while achieving high efficiency. Can't remember the last time I was similarly excited about D2 honestly.

 

[ffs]

Running AT barb was something i had in mind at some point. Would only do it to set a new record though, cause there is no point in playing some worse char (comparing to pitzerker). The char itself is quite interesting with all those build options, but i just decided not to play it in the end. Maybe i should rethink it when i'm done with my sorc. It honestly would be more interesting if AT barb was better than pitzerker. Way more stuff to look into imo.

After rerolling my pitmap, i was struck with a thought that i could have respeced my barb from pitzerker to singer and tried to improve the singer score. I don't like caster builds that much, so maybe it's better i didn't do it. Can still do it in the future and what's nice is the fact that my barb is still untwinked. Don't even think i will twink him. Maybe if someone will push pits too much ^^

Too early to say how a AT barb compares to Pit Beserker IMO. I know Gripp theorized he could be on par with Berserker, and it may be true. He's definitely better than Singer though.

I have a couple of HoR efforts in mind as well. When I ran Singer earlier in the set, I was at around 1.65 adjeff based on a dozen run sample or so, slightly worse than Gripphon's Singer entry. Should be possible to beat it with some more running. But then I moved on to AT barb because he is more interesting and more efficient.

For now I'll try to get a nice HoR score with AT barb, and then I guess I should get back to Pit Berserker... I almost beat your grinded score in some random MFO runs despite annoying S&E lag, can't be that hard. Haven't played Berserker at all since I basically stopped D2 for a while around MFO time.

 

[ResTTe]

I honestly don't think he will be on pair with pitzerker, but he can come close to him. AT is more demanding area than pits and you can get some nasty packs there which makes the runs messy sometimes imo. He is better than singer, but he is also way more demanding, so if i didn't want to play pitzerker, i would go for singer rather than AT barb ^^ What's nice is that you don't get devilkins in AT, so you don't have to chase them all the time XD

I can always come back to my barb and farm a better map. Will finish my sorc first though. Heard that there are problems with the new runcounter if your char is lvl 99. Looks like it relies on exp? Would be kinda lame if that's the case. Probably shouldn't talk about the new runcounter here, to make things less messy. Let's keep it in HoR.

 

[Kinkara]

So yeah, fresh build incoming, prepare for a more detailed write-up soon. Going to test more things first though before laying it all out at this point only to later discover improvements here or there.

I'm excited about this. Looking forward to it.

 

[Babyhell]

After slightly more than 14hrs in, finally an upgrade from the pits, in a new map. Found some nice things in-between, but they were not better pointers.

Almost 6 hours left... now either i go for the score and keep running the Pits, or i keep the current status with the top 5 is coming from 5 different places... I mean, it would be totally worth it and in line with the Tournament spirit.

The very best option would be running Cows to have LightningRiderS on the final pic. I guess i can do that - but she'll need some luck. A Zod? Time for Tournamenteress to grab some more legs then!

See you on next update

Upgrades found

• ZerkAndDestroy, The Pits

Progress table - complete

Location​	Character​	Valuable pointer found​
The Pits	ZerkAndDestroy	Yes (S/U)
Travincal	TraviRunnerS	Yes (Rune)
Pindle	ZerkAndDestroy	Yes (S/U)
Cows	LightningRiderS	Yes (S/U)
LK	Tournamenteress	Yes (Rune, 200 runs)
AT	TraviRunnerS	Yes (S/U)
CS	Tournamenteress	Yes (S/U)