Getting Benaiah through Hell - D2R Untwinked Zealot Planning & Progress

[Excalibur]

I am not quite sure why I though your goal was to beat them with zeal so sorry for the confusion!
Obviously, it would be dumb not to use Smite against them but you definitely don't have to make a pure Smiter Build. You may need to make slight adjustment to your build with the main focus being on Lifetap which can come either from Exile or Marrowalk. A lifetap wand on switch can work too but I find it a bit annoying. Definitely not Dracul's. The 5% is very unreliable and I died plenty times before it activated.

Good luck!

 

[BBS_Agonistes]

Thanks everyone for your input on the thread! It's been super helpful!

100 Countess runs on /p1 complete:


Not quite where I need to be, so I'll do 100 more and see where I stand. In the short term I'd like make Oath and Sanctuary in an allres Auric shield for me and Treachery and Obedience/Insight in an Eth Elite polearm for the merc.

I may hit some more boss packs this time around to see if some decent bases drop, but looking and silo's drop calculator, I may also need to run the pits with no MF or just move beyond A1 for my bases. I did at least get a white Monarch to mule off to my sorc.

 

[BBS_Agonistes]

200 Countess runs complete. Final count:
Ko - 5
Fal - 4
Lem - 1
Pul - 5
Um - 0
Mal - 1
Ist - 1

I almost was going to do 200 runs or go until I got a Mal, whichever came first. Finally got the first Lem for Treachery on run #144, then had Mal drop on run #170. I almost stopped there but was so close to 200 I continued and got an Ist on run #181.

I made Treachery and have runes for Oath. I'll move on and run some other areas of Hell now in hopes of getting a base for Oath and more fully equipping my guy. Treachery improved the Merc a ton already.

Even though I had almost zero MF, still have a few unique/set drops during Countess runs: Bloodmon, low roll Eschuta's Temper, Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest (from a rack), Shaftstop, a third Laying of Hands, and Fetid Sprinkler.

I nearly racked an Eth Decapitator, since I'd love to make a Charger with Death sometime, but the closest I got was an ethereal 2os and a plain 5os. Oh well.

Screens of some of the better moments.

 

[Crudesash]

Very insightful thread, thanks! I'm currently working on a Zealadin, NM A3, lvl 45, and my End Game plan for PI's is to use Reaper's Toll on the merc.

I'll have a bridge to gap though; I'll probably be around 65 at the end of NM, and RT can't be equipped until lvl 75. My current thought is to grind those 10 levels running NM Baal, but to speed it up I'll need to get some CB and MF to make it worthwhile. I don't know the math involved but I'm guessing it will take quite a few runs to get to 75.

Good luck on your adventures!

 

[BBS_Agonistes]

Reaper's Toll is my go-to merc stick, but as this is my first character back, no such luxury. So far Sanctuary takes care of all undead, and my point in Vengeance / Conviction does OK... it's just a little slow. But I rarely encounter PI demons. I picked up the Fetid Sprinkler, which also has CTC Decrepify, but it's so low (5%) it wasn't so effective.

 

[Crudesash]

I hear you, I have very little to work with as well, just matted a Zon but end game stuff isn’t there yet. I’ve about reached the end of my twinning, except for the Reapers. Which is of course a big exception XD

 

[Arjan]

I hear you, I have very little to work with as well, just matted a Zon but end game stuff isn’t there yet. I’ve about reached the end of my twinning, except for the Reapers. Which is of course a big exception XD

I don’t have a reapers either but for the merc on my sorc I made a Lawbringer. I might give that a try later today on my sealer to see how the CTC Decrypt and sanctuary work on those PI’s

 

[Babyhell]

Well I just had a read through, some nice sharing there.

I'll had my two cents: Lawbringer is cheating. Period.

 

[BBS_Agonistes]

I have been musing about Lawbringer as well. I'll keep that in mind.


Meanwhile, I just saw my first Berserker Axe drop. It was yellow, and I figured it would be useless but, what the heck... might as well ID it, and--



Not a bad drop for an untwinked fellow like myself! This will actually out-damage Demon Limb in physical damage, so I may keep DL on switch for enchant and see how this performs for fun. I'm guessing I'll miss the leech and other mods from DL, but still a decent rare nonetheless.

 

[LouB]

Lawbringer is AWESOME that's why Babyhell thinks its cheating. Other than for the undead just don't expect it to kill very quickly. I just finished a Wolfbarb using an Act 5 merc armed with a Lawbringer. It says it has a 20% chance to cast Decrepify, but I felt it was less often than 20%. Of course the duration is 3 times as long as Reaper's so you don't need it going off as often. I'm guesing that part of the reason I felt the decrepify wasn't hitting the 20% mark was the merc also using stun.

The knockback for Sanctuary is also very helpful in more places than Act 2. You need to realize that the knockback is from the merc and not your character. Depending on positioning this means that the knockback could actually knock the monster into you rather than away from you.

 

[BBS_Agonistes]

Lawbringer is AWESOME that's why Babyhell thinks its cheating. Other than for the undead just don't expect it to kill very quickly. I just finished a Wolfbarb using an Act 5 merc armed with a Lawbringer. It says it has a 20% chance to cast Decrepify, but I felt it was less often than 20%. Of course the duration is 3 times as long as Reaper's so you don't need it going off as often. I'm guesing that part of the reason I felt the decrepify wasn't hitting the 20% mark was the merc also using stun.

The knockback for Sanctuary is also very helpful in more places than Act 2. You need to realize that the knockback is from the merc and not your character. Depending on positioning this means that the knockback could actually knock the monster into you rather than away from you.

Back in the day I had a Charger that used an A1 Merc with Giant Skull / Treachery / Wrath that was similar in that she had decrepify and knockback. She was very effective, and nice for spreading out monsters so my charger could pinball off them. I have to admit, the A5 mercs have been tempting me this time through, and I've never done one with Lawbringer. If another Lem drops, I may give that a try.

Update: 100 Pit Runs Complete

I arbitrarily decided I'd do 100 pit runs, see what dropped, then move on. I ended up using the rare BA I picked up along the way. It upped my top-end damage from ~2800 to ~3600 and AR from 5900 to 7000. It felt a little faster kill-wise, and my only complaint was I'd forgotten how low the durability on Berserker Axes was.

Rest of gear: Smoke / Vamp Gaze / Cat's Eye / Rhyme / Dwarf Star / Manald Heal / LoH / War Travs
Merc: Tal Rasha's Helm / Insight GPA / Treachery

I just focused on kill speed instead of loading up on MF because I wanted to find some bases for runewords, especially my weapon.

Finds
Runes - Gul, Ko, Fal
RW Bases - 4os Eth Balrog Blade, 3os PB for Crescent moon and 5os PB for Grief. Some elite armors with sockets as well.
Magic items - Sparkly chest dropped an Oculus. Natalya's Mark.

No base for Oath, sadly. Though an Eth Berserker Axe was ideal, I would have taken an Eth Ettin Axe, Small Crescent, or Cryptic Sword. No luck, even with using cube socket recipes, and I'd have taken a 0os Small Crescent to Larzuk. I was tempted to go 2-handed with the Balrog Blade, but decided I'll just head on to LK and see if I can get a Lo rune to drop on the way.

I may go back to the Pits loaded up with MF gear at some point, but for now it's on to Lower Kurast!

Screenies:

Spoiler

 

[SirName]

Have you considered upping that Butchers Pupil of yours to Small Crescent?

Because of its 35 deadly strike a perfect 200 ed one will outperform a low roll ethereal Small Crescent Oath. At least with no other source of DS available (as in your current setup).
A perfect upped Butchers Pupil does 144 - 230 = on average 187 damage. Factoring in 35 DS: 1,35 * 187 = 252,45 damage on average. Which is about the same as an eth SC Oath with 243 ed roll.

As a comparison your Rare Berserker Axe does 183 damage on average.

A Small Crescent needs 86 ias to reach 4fpa Zeal so the Butchers Pupil does need a socket and a Shael with your current setup, but it is still cheaper (and possibly better depending on roll luck) than Oath.

This in case you feel you need more damage until you get that Lo for Grief.

Edit: oh not that this should be the biggest concern but Butchers is indestructible so doesn’t need repairing.

 

[BBS_Agonistes]

I did consider that, but unfortunately my Butcher's Pupil is a perfect bad roll: 150% ED. Somehow I can't bring myself to up such a bad roll.
That's a super helpful analysis, though. I love seeing the numbers crunched like that... hadn't had time to actually run them myself.

On the bright side, I've got a Small Crescent rack in LK, so Oath is a go!

 

[BBS_Agonistes]

200 Lower Kurast Runs complete at /players 3

Runs 1-100: Gul, Ist, Um
Runs 101-200: Lem, 4os Eth Small Crescent, 0os Eth Small Crescent

I was being a bit sarcastic about heading to LK for a Lo rune, as I had in mind I'd do only 200 runs, and to my recollection, it could take forever for anything to drop in LK, let alone a higher rune. I rolled a 2-campfire map and hopped to it.

Runs 1-100 were a lot better than I expected rune-wise. I was really dreading LK because I thought it would feel terribly slow using running and Charge instead of teleporting, but it wasn't too bad with 120% FRW.

Runs 101-200 were much drier rune wise, but actually got me to my goal of a higher damage weapon. Once I found one of the weapon racks in the chest huts was dropping Small Crescents if I went to it pretty directly, I was able to get the base.



A meh roll, but it will make a world of difference in kill speed, so I'm happy!

I also picked up an eth Thresher and an eth Conquest Sword. I'm assuming no one ever makes anything in Conquest Swords because of the small range?

Where to go from here? Lower Kurast always puts me in this gambler's mindset where I want to keep doing runs until I hit a higher rune when I have a dry spell. Of course, when I pop a higher rune from a chest, I don't usually want to stop after that.


....so I may run LK a tad more before moving on? And then maybe back to the Pits, but this time with MF gear.

 

[Foghorn Leghorn]

I have been musing about Lawbringer as well. I'll keep that in mind.


Meanwhile, I just saw my first Berserker Axe drop. It was yellow, and I figured it would be useless but, what the heck... might as well ID it, and--

View attachment 81767

Not a bad drop for an untwinked fellow like myself! This will actually out-damage Demon Limb in physical damage, so I may keep DL on switch for enchant and see how this performs for fun. I'm guessing I'll miss the leech and other mods from DL, but still a decent rare nonetheless.

It's drops like these that have always had me thinking in the back of my mind "Why not try an untwinked all-RARES character?", where no uniques or rune-words can be used.

 

[BBS_Agonistes]

It's drops like these that have always had me thinking in the back of my mind "Why not try an untwinked all-RARES character?", where no uniques or rune-words can be used.

Me too! Not untwinked, but way back in the day I built paladin around a rare legendary mallet. Zylo had yellow War Hammer with crazy ED he generously gifted me. I double-upped it and socketed it with a RJOF. I still think on it fondly:


I always think I never ID rares because they rarely roll crazy stuff like this, but how many do we miss because we don't ID them? I'm thinking if I did a rare-only untwinked character, or even a sept, I'd be IDing every yellow, and might find some very interesting items. I remember there was a guy who played only rares and crafts and he had some really crazy items on some of his characters, like a PDR Abbot IIRC. I'll try to find and link.

 

[BBS_Agonistes]

Having completed 200 runs, I decided I would run LK until another higher rune dropped and quit there, with a goal of ≥Ist in my head.

158 runs later: Ah, yes... this is the LK I remember... hundreds of runs without anything dropping... wrist aching...

Run 159:

Spoiler

 

[Arjan]

My very first LK run ever I found a Lo on a corps.

And then weeks of nothing higher then a Pul. Ok I didn’t do daily runs or anything but Damn… that was a long stretch of nothingness

 

[BBS_Agonistes]

My very first LK run ever I found a Lo on a corps.

And then weeks of nothing higher then a Pul. Ok I didn’t do daily runs or anything but Damn… that was a long stretch of nothingness

Lo on a first run is amazing! I think my approach wasn't optimal. I tried to find the old LK guide I remembered and found this one, which indicated /players 3 was best for straight runes, but I was just Googling a bit and found Gripphon's guide, which is much better and what I was recalling. It seems p7/8 is the best, so I'll do that from now on.

 

[Arjan]

Lo on a first run is amazing! I think my approach wasn't optimal. I tried to find the old LK guide I remembered and found this one, which indicated /players 3 was best for straight runes, but I was just Googling a bit and found Gripphon's guide, which is much better and what I was recalling. It seems p7/8 is the best, so I'll do that from now on.

I have found so many high end runes of the last couple of months. Upgraded some and made some real game changing runewords