Matriarch Hamburgler: CowRunner (LF'zon)

[sirpoopsalot]

Matriarch Hamburgler: CowRunner (LF'zon)

I just finished a couple of test runs with my new LF-zon designed specifically for cow runs. She rocks, but I've got some learning to do - I haven't run cows enough to have a good feel for their runs yet - I still get swarmed or waste too much time on a single monster.

Anyways, before getting to the Cow-stuff:

Hamburgler
Edit: update for reaching level92 here

Level 82+
LCS (while questing)
LCS (while cow running)

Skills:
20 (36) Lightning Fury
20 (36) Charged Strike
20 Power Strike
20 Lightning Bolt
4 (9) Pierce
1 (6) Decoy
1 prereq's
1 unused

Cowing Equipment:
Titan's Revenge (195/9)
Griffon's Eye (+16/-22 with facet)
Skullder's Ire (+3/15 Aureolic Jewel of Fervor)
Head Hunter's Glory
Cat's Eye
Silkweaves
Ravenfrost (20/179)
SoJ
Razortail
rare gloves: (+2 Javelin, 20 IAS, +2 Str, 9 LiteResist, 3% ManaLeech)

Switch: Harmony hunter's bow
Charms:
- 7x Harpoonists (+5 Str, +11 life, +23 life, 37% Gold, +25 poison, +3-6 cold, plain)
- 1x Amber / 1x Sapphire / 2x Ruby SC, each with 'of Balance' suffix
- 5x Amber SC (3 FRW, +42 life total)

Questing Equipment (for Hell only - I used Cowing equipment as much as I could before Hell):
Same as above, except:
2x Pdiamond Moser's Blessed Circle
+50 resist Skin of Vipermagi
Holy Freeze merc (Insight, Fortitude, VampGaze)


Notable Finds:
Lum/Um Hellforge
Rockstopper
Butcher's Pupil
Rixot's Keen
rare Heavy Boots (39 FRes, 40 CRes, 23 PRes, 10 FHR, 1-23 Lite damage, 25% PLR)... if only they had FRW
rare Demonhide Boots (20 FRW, 35 FRes, 39 PRes, 6 CRes)
rare Circlet (+2 sorc skills, +30 Str, 8% MLeech, 4 PDR)... if only it had resists


Notes
- players8 for Normal & Nightmare, /p1 for Hell. NM Baal runs to 76 for Griffon's before hell.

- LF is, of course, awesome. CS too. But surprisingly my low-investment backup attacks were pretty decent most of the time. I used jab sometimes, or just the elemental damage on my Harmony switch on occasion. And the merc did a lot of heavy lifting. I only found 2 monsters that made me want to throw my computer against a wall (but I did eventually kill those too).
Annoying monster #1
Annoying monster #2
<-- both of those took forever, and nothing I could do would make them attack my merc instead of me

- I did skip large chunks of lightning immunes. Decoy + Harmony + Cat's Eye + Silkweaves makes that pretty easy to do most of the time (I've already learned I can outrun an extra-fast, Holy-freeze cow boss with it :nervous. And I was amazingly lucky in the Maggot Lair - I didn't encounter one single beetle in all 3 levels. :shocked:

- I'm not sure if I'll spend my remaining skillpoint(s) in Lightning Strike or if I'll go after Evade. Evade would be handy right now (since I suck at running cows) but I'm thinking a little practice (and a few levels) will improve my chances of not getting hit, and then I'll want the extra damage... I'll probably wait a few levels before deciding, but I'm open to suggestions from experienced cow runners.

- I decided on a low-block approach, hoping the extra life would help me avoid hit recovery more (and the extra shield sockets would improve my damage/speed a lot). I think it'll work just fine with more experience, but she's fragile as hell. I died 5-10 times while questing, and pretty much had to focus entirely on not getting hit at all (read: my attacks were a much lower priority than not letting monsters attack me). Part of that was that I never tried 'hard' to make her safe, just "survivable".

- she is fast on the cow killing, that's for sure. I don't think the low resists or lack of blocking are going to be an issue though.

 

[maareek]

Re: Matriarch Hamburgler: CowRunner

Congrats on the mat! I don't have experience with amazons, but I definitely think you'll be better off upping damage over getting evade. Leveling should take care of your problems, along with more overall experience at cow running, and then you'll be kicking yourself for putting those points in evade.

The faceted HHG is pretty sexy, too.

 

[sirpoopsalot]

Re: Matriarch Hamburgler: CowRunner (LF'zon)

Thanks maareek.

It's hard to say, since my fragility can make it harder to herd large groups of cows. So far my damage is just fine if I can get a big enough herd, but running near/around packs can be a little dicey. I'll probably settle on more damage eventually, simply because glass cannons are more stylish.

I think I'm also going to drop the purple potions and double-up my red & blue ones. So far I've found that when I get to the point that I need purple potions, I'm already completely screwed.

BTW, third run and a promising beginning (Fal).


Edit: ... and with a little luck from the Horadric Cube:

Archon Plate
Defense: 510
Durability: 50 of 60
Required Strength: 103
Required Level: 63
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 1
Fingerprint: 0x9042fa74

 

[Trim]

Re: Matriarch Hamburgler: CowRunner (LF'zon)

I like the build; it's on my list of things to do, which is turning out to be a looong list...

But I like the name most of all. :thumbup: A sorc wearing the full Tal Rasha set could be a Grimmace.... my mind's wandering with random possibilities...

 

[Cygnus]

Re: Matriarch Hamburgler: CowRunner (LF'zon)

Congrats on yet another mat. Great name. Doesn't HF get in the way of herding?

My own LF zon is twiddling her thumbs in anticipation of the Griffon's that's due to drop any day now :whistling:

 

[sirpoopsalot]

Re: Matriarch Hamburgler: CowRunner (LF'zon)

Doesn't HF get in the way of herding?

Indeed. Vikhyat got stripped and didn't make it past Rakanishu on my first run to collect Wirt's leg (I lingered a few seconds to kill him off).

Of course I've resurrected him once already by accidentally clicking on Kashya and then having bad habit kick in... I really wish he'd rest in peace, but I know he's doomed to come back & haunt me. :crazyeyes:

 

[midnightvulture]

Re: Matriarch Hamburgler: CowRunner (LF'zon)

Congrats on the mat. I'm planning on building a Fury over the winter break from school, so I'm curious, why Harmony instead of a lower resist wand? With the Griffon's and your facets it seems like whatever you could break would be easy enough to kill. Also, why the HHG instead of a 4-facet monarch? Didn't like the str req, or just liked the +life/kill better?

I hope your luck with those bovines continues.

mv

 

[bassen]

Re: Matriarch Hamburgler: CowRunner (LF'zon)

nice writeup

Now I think I understand why you ISOed L-facets . Good luck with your runner

 

[sirpoopsalot]

Re: Matriarch Hamburgler: CowRunner (LF'zon)

@mv,
Charges are tedious and expensive, so an LR wand would drive me nuts - besides, the radius would be puny compared to the effect of my LF, my killspeed is pretty fast already and it wouldn't break many lightning immune cows... the drawbacks would far outweigh the benefits.

Besides, the Harmony helps me go get Wirt's legs, as well as zipping in between a few tighter groups of cows (don't forget that skill-based FRW is more effective than item-based FRW, so although it looks like a marginal improvement over Titan's, it's a bit more significant than that). I can outrun extra-fast monsters somewhat easier with the Harmony (and EF packs are the really dangerous ones, since I can't create much space without waking up more packs).

As for HHG, the +life per kill is pretty nice. A (small) pack of ~15 dead cows = ~100 healed life. I figured the resists wouldn't hurt either, since I knew mine would suck plenty. And the extra Vitality I've saved is nothing to complain about. Since my damage is pretty high already, I felt that was worth the extra 5/5 I could squeeze out of a Monarch (if I'd had a JMoD it would've been a different story though), not to mention the extra cost of buying 4th facet.




*****
I think I'm getting the hang of this - I only drank a couple of red potions on the last couple of runs and ~6 blues, compared to the earlier runs where I almost ran out. Now I just need to get my speed up higher, since I'm still quite slow.

I also got the first ED/IAS jewel I can remember. 12/15 Rusty Jewel of Fervor might not be much to brag about, but I'll use it somewhere, someday.

 

[Ugla]

Re: Matriarch Hamburgler: CowRunner (LF'zon)

Congrats on the mat :thumbup:
Your build looks pretty much optimal for the task by looking at the stats. I also agree that the additional strength needed to equip monarch is not worth the extra facet.

JMoD might be a different story, but only if you planned on running WSK&Baal extensively. In that case, however, I'd stick with 1pt in Pierce and went for "complete" D-fury build as described within my guide. You would also need 'CoH' or the like for the major chunk of resists.

I found Decoy useful for parking the LI cows.
@mv: LE cow bosses are unbreakable by lvl3 Lower Resistance, because the have 120+%LR.

Since I play vanilla, I still keep the LR dagger on switch for the additional damage against herds (don't have a faceted shield). The charges are rather cheap compared to some other skills.

ehmm, poops, are you sure you haven't MPed with a Bonemancer or such who was one corner ahead of you in the Maggot's Lair? Unbeliavable

 

[Raskah]

Re: Matriarch Hamburgler: CowRunner (LF'zon)

Congratz. Nice write-up and nice character as well.

So when is the barbecue!? :wink:

 

[purplelocust]

Re: Matriarch Hamburgler: CowRunner (LF'zon)

Nicely done, that was quick!

I'm Vanilla and have no Harmony experience, but I still think the FRW from some charms and other gear is sufficient for threading the gaps between cow packs. Using Decoy works well for good clumping, for me. And for getting Wirt's Leg, I again vote for using another character to make a huge stockpile of them instead of having the amazon go for them each time. There is no comparison, time-wise, between a sorc harvesting legs and anyone else. And you can reroll the sorc's map to get a short tele from the WP to the standing stones. It may not be worth it unless you are going to do a lot of cow runs, but I do a lot of cow runs and it has served me well.

The facet setup looks nice- I've got some HHGs but never filled them up and your setup looks great.

I"ve found a lot of nice jewels and charms in cows over the years and hopefully your luck continues with some nice ED/IAS jewels dropping...

On you 1 lvl Archon Plate- if you use a Larzuk quest, you'll now definitely get 3 sockets, instead of taking you chances with the cube recipe.

 

[Caly]

Re: Matriarch Hamburgler: CowRunner (LF'zon)

Nice character. The name's making me hungry.

A Fal rune already... awesome. I'm leveling a Fishyzon to run the WSK for me but I might go kill some cows with her too. There's just something fun about mowing them down. I'm looking forward to seeing you post your finds. I've thought about making a cow runner but I admit I am not sure what exactly running cows is best for; is it mainly for whites/socketables and the chance at HRs?

Anyway, congrats. :thumbsup:

 

[jrlafrance]

Re: Matriarch Hamburgler: CowRunner (LF'zon)

Just curious poops, how long did it take to Mat her? I'm currently leveling mine (level 34) up, and in A5 normal already, it's going very fast! CS is maxed already, and working on LF now.

 

[sirpoopsalot]

Re: Matriarch Hamburgler: CowRunner (LF'zon)

Thanks all,

ehmm, poops, are you sure you haven't MPed with a Bonemancer or such who was one corner ahead of you in the Maggot's Lair? Unbeliavable

I know. I was dreading the Maggot Lair, especially since I was meaning to twink on Naj's Puzzler and some FCR gear and forgot until I was half way through level1. At that point I just said "well, I'm here already... let's see how it goes". :shocked:

I'm Vanilla and have no Harmony experience, but I still think the FRW from some charms and other gear is sufficient for threading the gaps between cow packs. Using Decoy works well for good clumping, for me. And for getting Wirt's Leg, I again vote for using another character to make a huge stockpile of them instead of having the amazon go for them each time. There is no comparison, time-wise, between a sorc harvesting legs and anyone else. And you can reroll the sorc's map to get a short tele from the WP to the standing stones. It may not be worth it unless you are going to do a lot of cow runs, but I do a lot of cow runs and it has served me well.

I did take the trouble to roll a map with the waypoint near the portal. It takes me 15-20 seconds to get the leg at the beginning of each run. I'm not convinced using a sorc and muling legs would be any faster at all, and building a stockpile would be more tedious for sure. I consider the time spent getting the leg to be a nice warmup for the cow run, and it does make the run feel a little less tedious, since it adds some variety of terrain & process.

You're probably right about using Decoy; I do need to use it more. But don't knock the Harmony until you've tried it. It's nice. Sure the other FRW is "sufficient" without it, but Harmony makes it even better for circling a big herd or cutting between the gaps. If I had to guess, I'd say the level10 Vigor aura is like 45-60 item-based FRW.

Just curious poops, how long did it take to Mat her? I'm currently leveling mine (level 34) up, and in A5 normal already, it's going very fast! CS is maxed already, and working on LF now.

3 days. Normal on day1, with Baal runs to 50 (for Cat's Eye), up to the start of Act3 Hell on Day2, and the last 3 acts yesterday.

You'll find the progress is great if you don't get hung up on trying to take out lightning immunes (parking monsters isn't always my strongest suit - I like to kill them). The Maggot Lair, Act3, and parts of Act5 (Ancients Way spawned LI Frenzytaur's and Dark Lancer's; that wasn't fun) are the only areas that'll really slow you down. If you use Decoy enough you can survive anything though.

 

[omgwtfbbqpwned]

Re: Matriarch Hamburgler: CowRunner (LF'zon)

lol cool name. It took me a while to get it.

 

[sirpoopsalot]

Re: Matriarch Hamburgler: CowRunner (LF'zon)

I decided to resurrect this old thread with an update since, after several tweaks and iterations, I believe I've finally got the setup that's right for me. At least I hope so, because lord knows I've spent enough wealth on her. Of course, there's still room for improvement, but I think she's 99% of the way there.

Also, I'd like to specifically thank a few people that contributed some loot (or effort). I couldn't have gotten close to this point without them.


[highlight]Hamburgler[/highlight], Cow Runner Extraordinaire:
LCS & Skills Tree
Switch LCS & Inventory


Gear:
Titan's Revenge (195/9)
Griffon's Eye (+16/-22 with perfect facet)
Jeweler's Ancient Armor of Stability
Head Hunter's Glory
Cat's Eye
Silkweaves
Ravenfrost (20/179)
SoJ
Razortail
3/20 Lancer's Light Gloves of Alacrity

Switch: Harmony hunter's bow

Charms:
8x Harpoonists Grand Charms (FHR, FRW, +11, +23, +35 life, 2xCold Damage, 1xPoison Damage)
8x <resists> Small Charms of Inertia (+22 Cold, +10 Poison, +28 Fire, +12 Lightning)


Hidden Stats:
+121 Faster Run Walk on primary attack, even faster with Harmony active
+46% to Lightning Skill Damage (in addition to what I get from synergies)
+8 mana per kill <--- very important
+7 life per kill <--- very helpful
32+ Faster Hit Recovery (7 frames)
10-frame Attack Speed
100% Pierce
... and, most importantly ...
[highlight]-52% to Enemy Lightning Resistance[/highlight]


Skills:
20 (37) Lightning Fury
20 (37) Charged Strike
20 Power Strike
20 Lightning Bolt
10+ Lightning Strike
5 (9) Pierce
1 (5) Decoy
1 prereq's



Notes / Update:
1. Although it looks like the gear has hardly changed from the original setup, I assure you it's gone through lots of adjustment. A lot of tweaking was through charms, but a few other pieces have been replaced along the way too. Resists have gone up and down at various times, so have my skills, damage, FHR, life, FRW, and just about any other stat.

Eventually I've learned that what seems to work best for me is to attain a minimum amount of FHR (7 frames) and after that do everything to maximize speed and power, even at the cost sacrificing resists and (a little) survivability in the process.

Actually, it's debatable that survivability deteriorated at all with lower resists - with more power and speed she finds it easier to kill things before they get close and to escape danger, respectively. Her life is almost-always enough to take a FE/CE boss explosion head on though (one did get me the other day, but 98% of them don't 1-hit-KO her, which is all I need).

However, she's definitely fragile. Always was, and always will be. She's designed to kill before she gets hit, and although she's not perfect, she's really good at that job. This is a glass cannon in every sense.


2. Yes, that's 7 perfect facets in the gear. Only the one in my Griffon's Eye is self-found (Griffon's is also self-found).

3. I never bothered with either ethereal and/or upgraded Titan's. I still run low on javelins once every 5-10 runs, so it's nice to be able to repair the stack in town and keep rolling. And 98% of her life regeneration is provided by her shield, so an upgraded one would only require higher investment into dexterity/strength while providing a very small boost to damage & leech in return. So ethereal and/or upgraded Titan's doesn't seem worth the trouble.

4. After switching away from the Skullder's Ire to an armour without MF, I was surprised how much of a difference it made in her "grey" drops. I'd estimate the number of socketables has at least doubled (maybe tripled) since I lost that ~100 MF. I didn't think it would be that big of a difference, but it's very noticeable. For example, I noticed 8 grey items on the ground in one screen the other day.

5. I can swap back to Moser's Blessed Circle + Smoke/Vipermagi and do /players8 Baal runs surprisingly well. For making a run at level 99, I'd wager that pure javazon's are probably only behind Enigmadins and Infinity lightning sorcs, and equal or better than just about everything else.

6. As for the mana per kill, it's amazing what difference an adjustment here will make during cow runs. I went with +5 for a very brief time, and it simply wasn't enough. Not even close. And when I went with +11 for a few runs, and her mana bulb barely flinched below full.

+8 mana per kill is about the amount where I end up drinking one potion every run, on average (plus maybe another 1-2 if I get hit by a manaburn pack). I'm finding that +8 is a perfect amount, since if I notice my mana dipping, it usually means I'm fighting too many individual monsters at once. More +MPK than that and I might not notice it as much, and spend more times engaging individuals than I'd like. (FYI, 2-3 LF's against a big pack will completely fill her bulb).


7. As for the power... it's nice. :cloud9: I run on /players7, and I find it's consistently 2 throws to kill ~90% of a pack of cows, 2-3 more throws to clean up 4-5 of the ~7 that are left, and a Charged Strike or two to finish the stragglers off. If I go with CS against a single cow it's 2-5 hits (depending a lot on the angle of attack). For bosses and champs it varies a lot, but seldom takes more than 7 hits.

I don't bother with Lightning Immune bosses, since they take too long (and their bolts hurt a lot with my low resists). The only other bosses that give consistent headaches are Extra Fast ones, but even if those spawn with the holy-freeze aura, I can outrun them. And a well-placed decoy can help too, obviously. Grabbing a new Wirt's Leg at the start of a run is often the most perilous time during the run.



So, what's left for Hamburgler beyond making hamburgers?
- The biggest goal for the moment is to get another Harpoonists of Balance charm, which would give me 48 FHR. At that point I'd swap one of the Inertia small charms for a Balance one, and get her over the next FHR breakpoint (52+ = 6 frames).
- Several of my resistance/inertia small charms are mediocre, so some upgrades there are possible.
- Actually, I'll get around to looking up FRW formulas at some point, and maybe drop an FRW charm for a +20 lifer or two if that makes sense.
- I wouldn't mind swapping a few of my Harpoonists skillers if something better comes along, but it's not critical by any stretch
- I'd like an upgrade to my Griffon's Eye, but who knows when/if that'll ever happen.
... that's really about it.


Thanks For The Itamz:
- colony (perfect facet + Harpoonist of Inertia + 3/20 gloves)
- frozzzen (perfect facet)
- jaedhann (2x perfect facets)
- maxgerin (perfect facet)
- nubikoen (perfect facet)
- udgard (Harpoonist's of Balance)

Also, Nightfind deserves thanks too, since he talked me into waiting long enough to get the 3rd facet for the armour and the gloves (which makes the final numbers a little higher than if I hadn't waited). Although his items didn't make it into the final product, he spent much of the past week valiantly trying rack an elite 'light' armour of stability in 1.07 and to get Larzuk to poke 4 holes in it. Alas my patience ran out when I while I was starring at the almost-as-good armour I had on hand, but that doesn't lessen his effort or his offer to help.

And finally, thanks to everyone that's actively or passively helped with knowledge & opinions of cow runs and cow runners. There's been too many people that've posted a tidbit that I've pilfered (most didn't even know it) for me to remember even half of 'em.

Cheers all. :wine:


Edit: forgot to mention the average run time now on /players7 is just under 8 minutes, including the time spent in town and retrieving Wirts leg. When I first posted this thread and did enough warmup runs to be comfortable, iirc the average was around 12 minutes.

 

[Friiser1]

Re: Matriarch Hamburgler: CowRunner (LF'zon)

That is a lot of wealth for one character. Are you running cows for runes? exp? socketables? Intense hatred for the bovine?

 

[sirpoopsalot]

Re: Matriarch Hamburgler: CowRunner (LF'zon)

Experience is the last reason to run cows past level~88 these days. I did my levelup runs from 90 to 92 against WSK/Baal (needed 9 more stats into strength) and that probably took 1/5th of the time it took for her to go from 89 to 90 with cow runs.

My reasons are as follows:
- 60% - runes ... not that these have been forthcoming
- 22% - she's fun and lively to play
- 15% - a challenge/break to contrast most other runs (going from boring & safe & repetitive MF to a glass-cannon is an awakening)
- 3% - socketables/charms/jewels (thankfully these have been pretty solid)

 

[Jeff Jonsson]

Re: Matriarch Hamburgler: CowRunner (LF'zon)

Cool character.

Grabbing a new Wirt's Leg at the start of a run is often the most perilous time during the run.

Can't you collect legs with a sorc, and then mule them over?