Key Finder

G-wig

New member
Key Finder

So, what is the best char for searching keys? 2trees sorc maybe? Wich trees? Maybe someone else? But tele is important...

from my experience:
nec summoner - he's too slow, he dies if you try to be fast.
zeal/smite pala - too slow!
hammerdin - he can run all 3 keys. Got some problems with nik, but he can do it...
blizz sorc - only hate, cause of immunes. But hate is really quick. As always for sorcs
 
I use my Hammerdin for key running. For Nihlathak, I telepiort right on top of him and spam hammers. If for some reason my hammers miss and Nihlathak teleports away, I switch to Redemption in order to get rid of corpses and recover any life I lost to his Corpse Explosion.
 
i use a lighting/orb sorc... i haven't run summoner yet... nor have i played in a while... no computer set up since i've been moving -_-
 
I use my strafe/fury hybrid to run countess and nihlathak, nihlathak just takes some careful luring of the minions and then charging him with one point jab.

I use a regular blizz sorc for summoner
 
Omikron8 said:
I use my strafe/fury hybrid to run countess and nihlathak, nihlathak just takes some careful luring of the minions and then charging him with one point jab.

I use a regular blizz sorc for summoner


Fragile builds all of 'em. I use my BvC to run Nith only. Why? I'm glad you asked.

a) A nith run can be done in less than 2 minutes. I'm often done with nith before a keyrunning friend has found the black tower. Without maphack, you can spend awhile with the Summoner, or in the tower looking for the stairs. You always know where Nith is, and where the stairs are. THere's only three maps, after all, for Halls of Pain.

b) Dest keys are easily traded for 1 Terror or 2 Hates. I collected 7 D keys in one night with my BvC, and used 4 to trade for 2 hates and 3 terrors, with a total wait time of about 5 minutes. The barb didn't die on a single run. Corpse explosion is a joke, since the barb is usually ww'd out of range before Nith pop's 'em.

c) Due to the barb's speed+enigma, you can streak past virtually every critter in the halls untouched, and worst case, you do a quick ww to cut through a group and keep running. Elemental damage? Bah. Arrows? Nothing. Snakes? Throw 'em a rat (or a necro, same diff) and keeping going.

d) With a little find item (if you wanted to throw a carver on switch, since hi BO is unnecessary), you have lots of high level critters to hork for extra goodies.

e) There's no character more fun to play than a ultra fast, freakishly tough killing machine that is the BvC ww barb.

The only drawback is the repair costs for enigma. Solution? Ofter 50K per ral in a normal room, and you'll have a fistful of armor repairing rals in no time.

Good luck!

calibansfury
 
calibansfury said:
Fragile builds all of 'em. I use my BvC to run Nith only. Why? I'm glad you asked.

a) A nith run can be done in less than 2 minutes. I'm often done with nith before a keyrunning friend has found the black tower. Without maphack, you can spend awhile with the Summoner, or in the tower looking for the stairs. You always know where Nith is, and where the stairs are. THere's only three maps, after all, for Halls of Pain.

b) Dest keys are easily traded for 1 Terror or 2 Hates. I collected 7 D keys in one night with my BvC, and used 4 to trade for 2 hates and 3 terrors, with a total wait time of about 5 minutes. The barb didn't die on a single run. Corpse explosion is a joke, since the barb is usually ww'd out of range before Nith pop's 'em.

c) Due to the barb's speed+enigma, you can streak past virtually every critter in the halls untouched, and worst case, you do a quick ww to cut through a group and keep running. Elemental damage? Bah. Arrows? Nothing. Snakes? Throw 'em a rat (or a necro, same diff) and keeping going.

d) With a little find item (if you wanted to throw a carver on switch, since hi BO is unnecessary), you have lots of high level critters to hork for extra goodies.

e) There's no character more fun to play than a ultra fast, freakishly tough killing machine that is the BvC ww barb.

The only drawback is the repair costs for enigma. Solution? Ofter 50K per ral in a normal room, and you'll have a fistful of armor repairing rals in no time.

Good luck!

calibansfury

dude? you told them your best secret for the fastest keyhunting...

i do that too. but with v/t that uses cta and spirit to tele and grief/uphoz to kill/convert monsters so i can click nilathak

dont tell them ''my secret to the right path to nilathak''
 
w-igor said:
So, what is the best char for searching keys? 2trees sorc maybe? Wich trees? Maybe someone else? But tele is important...

from my experience:
nec summoner - he's too slow, he dies if you try to be fast.
zeal/smite pala - too slow!
hammerdin - he can run all 3 keys. Got some problems with nik, but he can do it...
blizz sorc - only hate, cause of immunes. But hate is really quick. As always for sorcs

I use a summoner with enigma/beast to run nihlathak. I can be done in 2 minutes or thereabouts as well.
Getting to the stairs takes about 20 secs or less. Getting to the right "wing" of the halls of vaught is what takes a bit of time. If you're right on the first try the run is over within a minute. if not it takes a bit more than 2.

It can be done fast with a summoner with enigma (but then again what can't be done fast with enigma??)

LF zon is good for Arcane Sanctuary.

I don't like running countess because it takes too long to find
1. Black tower
2. So many stairs down to the 5th level

Just takes too long. Wonder how come theres so much supply of these.
 
when i played nl i used my buffed up bone necro with enigma...he could run all 3 very easily...countess and summoner is obviously peace of cake and i used bone spear to snipe nihlathak...also used CE when feeling like making some mayhem - gotta love using his own spell against him ;)
 
oh yeah... enigma... beast... great. :(
My necro have p.diam homun and 35mf +2summon amu. ALL other items sucks (maybe except gull, cause its good at mf).
So... i wont find the keys now. But what are a GOOD prices i pay buy them? Wich rune is fair for key set? Wich rune for every single key? ...And wich runes are worth eyes, brains? Is eye of baal = key set ? Or ts worth more cause you need to kill uber?
 
w-igor said:
oh yeah... enigma... beast... great. :(
My necro have p.diam homun and 35mf +2summon amu. ALL other items sucks (maybe except gull, cause its good at mf).
So... i wont find the keys now. But what are a GOOD prices i pay buy them? Wich rune is fair for key set? Wich rune for every single key? ...And wich runes are worth eyes, brains? Is eye of baal = key set ? Or ts worth more cause you need to kill uber?


You don't need the beast to run keys, in fact beast can be the last item you pick up for your summoner. If you want to move fast with a summoner you need something that teles, either an ammy with tele charges or naj's staff which has 70 charges, thats good enough. You don't need the gull and 35 mf ammy to find keys because it doesn't help. I too use a pdiamond homun....

Don't trade for keys, because anything they ask for would be harder to get than the key itself. Imagine this, most people ask SOJ for key. 4 to 5 sojs would get you a nice Enigma. So....... its not very worthwhile to trade for keys unless you've got mules of SOJs stashed around in your offshore swiss accounts.

If you can afford to trade items/runes for keys, you can afford beast and enigma.
 
I still use my very first char from the first ladder season, my Orb/Es sorc, she still has the same Barb merc (although both had some serious upgrades in gear throughout the years)

I can't run the Uber Clones with her, they're indeed far too powerfull, but the collect keys, I have no probs.
Countess is tele tele tele and then let my merc chop the countess and her minions to bits.
Summoner is tele tele tele and kill the dude.
Nilithak is tele tele tele, if he's cold imuun, let my merc kill everything (I lure it do one side of the room to not get swarmed) and then finish off Nili, or when he's not cold imuun, jump in the middle of the packs and orb him to dead.

My base setup still deals enough orb damage to kills bosses fast and my es can easily absorb the corpse explosions and damage done. Mana Burn countess you say? Well just step back and let my merc absorb some more damage, he can take it :rolleyes:
 
I use my lvl 90 sorc to run for keys.. She has orb as main skill.. fireWall as secondary.. Static field and teleport and energy shield too of course.. The firewall is slow but very efficient.. especially when I have a tank merc to hold the cold immune monsters while I fry them. I believe my wall is doing about 8K damage per second right now
 
baba is too expensive for me. Ive wanted this baba ONLY for key hunting.
Maybe one day ill make him. But then not for key hunting, but for pvp.

Ill take a sorc. But i have no idea wich one will be the best for key runes. If you can, pls write me something about it in my topic in sorcs forum "key sorc". I know wich sorc CAN do it... but i need the best one
 
IstinkTherefourIAM said:
dude? you told them your best secret for the fastest keyhunting...

i do that too. but with v/t that uses cta and spirit to tele and grief/uphoz to kill/convert monsters so i can click nilathak

dont tell them ''my secret to the right path to nilathak''


Dang! Good point by you.

Uh, forget what I said. I'm not looking to wreck the key economy. BvC's suck. I was lying about it all. There's 400 halls maps. Just forget it and dont run him at all. Ever. In fact no mf runs for anyone.

That oughta do it.

calibansfury
 
dang79 said:
I don't like running countess because it takes too long to find
1. Black tower
2. So many stairs down to the 5th level

Just takes too long. Wonder how come theres so much supply of these.

There are those of us who run her for runes. We find keys even if we don't want them. (which we do, at least when we have the stuff to kill the Ubers)
 
Not sure why people think the countess is difficult to run. I generally spiral north and the levels do get smaller as you descend so the run gets easier. Using my lvl 90 LF zon I stop only to kill the physical immune ghosts which constantly drop full rejuvs which I stock up for the Nithilik run. The hardest part is finding the tower but again a spiralling run soon locates it

As for Nith its just a case of checking the WP for direction and running without stopping to the lower lvl. Here I always head south first, running past everything. If Nith is present I cast a decoy and let loose with LF. My merc and Valk will advance towards him. I then run round the other side to his lair and take him out from behind with charged strike. If hes not at this location I simply take each compass point in turn until hes found.

Summoner is more difficult to find. I just take a direction and run it. If hes not at the end then tp out take WP back in and try a new dirction. This for me is the longest run involved. Therefore I tend to only run Countess first and then Nith. By the way Nith drops 2 keys at once quite often.
 
Frenzy barb.

Leap on top of Nithy to knockback minions.
Warcry to stun minions for 5 secs.
Work over Nith's face for 3 secs. or until mush. Repeat. :thumbsup:
 
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