Matriarch/Patriarch/Guardian Archive Thread

Originally posted by colony on Sep 1, 2004:

Well I warned you yesterday...

...and here it is.

My 3rd 1.10 guardian finished off Baal yesterday at around 4:15 pm. Act 5 went reasonably smotthly apart from the very slow progress in the ice caves due to gloams (LI, and Im not losing 40resist from switching to FA to kill them faster).

The main problem with the Ancients, as usual, wasnt actually fighting them, but trying to get some nice friendly mods. Not combos such as cursed, fanat, ES, EF :cheesy:

It took a lot of rerolls, and a lot of decoys/valks left to die to get something that wasnt too bad (2 of them had teleport in the end :) )

stats, damage, resists after items
and here she is sitting on my character screen.

Along with my dead sorc...

Anyway Skills:

20 LF, 20 FA, 20 CS, 10 valk, 4 penetrate, 3 pierce, 3 CA. And 1 in all prereq's.

ITEMZZZ!!!111oneone:

(mainly nicked off my barb, so not really anywhere close to being untwinked)

Kiras Guardian
Crescent Moon Ammy
Titans Revenge
Gerkes Sanctuary
Skullders with PTopaz
TGods Vigour
Sigons Gloves + Boots
Coral Ring of the Leech
Rare ring with Fire/Light Res.
On Switch for LIs, the one and only favourite of all 1.09 bowazons, yes youve guessed it, a Buriza

Stats before items:

STR: 115
DEX: 190
VIT: 180
No energy at all. Well except the 15 that you start with.

Oh and if youre wondering why you can only see 2 guardians on the screenie, not 3, its because my hammerdin went the way most of my old characters went about 1 and a half months ago, into the recycle bin, and then into wherever it is deleted files go...

So Ive got to make 5 more if I want to see all 7 on the screen at the same time :cheesy:

edit: if you dont like badly named threads, feel free to change it AE or Kremtok
 
Originally posted by @jiansonz on Dec 30, 2013:

Guardian Martina, 'Envious of the Green and Gold' Immolation Arrow Amazon

Back in May 2013, I took an Amazon to Guardian in Morathi's Envious of the Green and Gold tournament.

As usual, all my characters reports are in the tourney thread (quite detailed, many with screenshots).

Being a combo of earlier tourneys that focused on set- and unqiue items, this tourney is a single-pass tourney about item restrictions. We could only use greens and golds (plus whites and greys until those slots had S/U items). Sockets could only be filled with emeralds, topazes and jewels with green or yellow graphics. Mercs had the same restrictions, so once we had found three or more S/U weapons, mercs had to use those in our pool of greens and golds or go weaponless.

My plan was to specialize in one or two skills I had not played much with before: Jab and Immolation Arrow. What I had been told about Immo arrow was that it is not particularly powerful but it will get the job done. Fine by me...

Martina used a combo of scepters and a Long Bow with a +2 max damage jewel in the first act. Got a nice set combo going already before the first act was over - Arctic Furs + Binding. In the second act, she mostly trailed behind a Prayer merc that used a Spetum. A low quality Poleaxe dropped in the AS, so the last bit of the act saw him with a slightly bigger weapon (I 'normalized' it in the cube). Duriel dropped my third S/U weapon. Now I had the following three weapons to choose from:

Crushflange
Skewer of Krintiz
Bladebone

Not a lot of Immolation Arrows or Jabbing to be had from that lot! As crappy as it is, Bladebone was actually the best weapon of the bunch. So axe-amazon Martina and her chilling sidekick Telash the Mage set out in the jungles of Kurast and actually made progress, slow as it was. She did not need to do much tanking because her Decoy was built up to decent levels.

A Cold mage (apart from a couple of lightning mage guest appearances in Act V areas with shambling undead) was with Martina all the way until Nightmare Andariel was slain. Martina found a better axe in Act V: Skull Splitter Military Pick, which she upgraded to Crowbill after Bonesaw Breaker dropped a Sol rune. Socket reward was used to put a perfect topaz in Arctic Furs. Martina's main weapon for Act I Nightmare was Heart Carver (dropped by Baal), a quite powerful weapon for that stage of the game, plus it made it so her block recovery time was no longer ungodly slow...

Now that I had access to new merc types, I changed to Might merc, shifted gear around and became a fire bowazon with Blastbark (Gothic Bow) as my bow. Might merc was outfitted with The Impaler, Tancred's Skull and Skin of the Flayed One.

As soon as I tried it out, I liked Immolation Arrow. Of course it probably helped that it was powerful (~900 damage) against these early NM monsters. Gameplay became much safer when I abandoned the Daggerzon route. I found Skystrike in Lost City which was clearly better than Blastbark.

NM Diablo dropped Stealskull, which made my merc much better. Now that he had life steal on the helm, I could give him (upgraded) Twitchthroe instead of Skin of the Flayed One.

Icy Cellar in NM was the first place where I really lost control over a fight. Read about that in this post. Complete mess, which also meant I had to do the rest of that session (including Ancients and Baal) from a situation where I had no rejuvenation potions (although I could cube two of them later in the session).

Late Nightmare brought some interesting stuff, like Cliffkiller and Spellsteel which both proved useful later. I started to build up a decent level of Charged Strike (as a PI+FI solution).

Next crazy fight was in Hell Pit level 2, where I had to bring back a dagger + shield setup so I could defeat a messy starting room that involved a Cursed rogue melee boss.

I kept going on /players 3 on Hell difficulty. Merc was now wielding Athena's Wrath and Martina had maxed the Exploding Arrow synergy (the one that boosts the impact damage). I did not bother with the other synergy, the one that boosts the lingering flames.

Apart from a situation in Halls of the Dead and one really scary in Ruined Temple, I was very succesful at staying out of danger for the rest of the game (see the thread for how I dealt with a multitude of FI Champion Frenzytaurs in an ice cave, among other things). I was scared of Burning Souls in Act IV (31% lightning resist!) but I managed to play well there and avoid almost all shots.

Merc died before I had killed the FI Talic but Decoy (Talic could not kill her if she was cast in a corner so he couldn't whirl) and Magic Arrow pulled me through there. I had Spellsteel on the switch in this fight so I could use Teleport and Decrepify. Nice little 'swiss army knife' for this tourney, that axe!

Melee mercs are not good in the cow level if you do not have a hugely powerful character or one with amazing crowd control. They attract far too many cows at once. I switched out the HF merc for a cold mage, which I could give some pretty good caster gear (Vipermagi, Lidless).


Guardian Martina the Amazon
Level 87
STR 100+11 DEX 157 VIT 253 ENE 15
Life 1189 Mana 144
Resists 85/40/47/-35
Immolation Arrow damage: arrow 168-504 + fire explosion 1563-1599
Charged Strike damage: spear 120-294, lightning damage 1-314 and releases 6 bolts

Immolation Arrow 20+3
Explosion Arrow 20+3

Jab 1+1
Charged Strike 16+1

Decoy 20+1
Slow Missiles 2+1
Critical Strike 7+1
Pierce 2+1

Cloak of Shadows (30 charges)


Primary Gear (late Hell)
* Darksight Helm socketed with a (yellow) 30% Ambergris Jewel
* Nokozan Relic
* Cliffkiller
* Skin of the Vipermagi socketed with a (green) Shimmering Jewel of the Icicle ((29+6)% resist all, MDR by 13)
* Sigon's Gage
* Sigon's Wrap
* Sigon's Sabot
* 2x Manald Heal

* Ruby (29) Grand Charm
* Sapphire (26) Grand Charm
* Amber (15) Large Charm
* Tangerine (5) Large Charm of Venom
* Large Charm of Sustenance (24)
* Large Charm of Vita (28)
* Burly Large Charm of Vita (29)
* Ocher (6) Small Charm of Strength (1)
* Ocher (7) Small Charm of Life (8)
* Ocher (7) Small Charm of Life (9)
* Ocher (7) Small Charm of Storms (1-20)
* Tangerine (5) Small Charm
* Cobalt (9) Small Charm
* Small Charm of Anthrax

Switch:
* The Impaler (for Charged Strike use)

Merc (mainly Holy Freeze, sometimes Might) gear:
* Stealskull
* Athena's Wrath
* Twitchthroe Trellised Armor

In stash (for special occasions):
* Heart Carver + Whitstan's Guard (for when tanking was necessary - she had 71% block in that Pit situation)
* Spellsteel (used to separate and slightly tame Hell Ancients)


Players 8 on Normal and Nightmare, players 3 on Hell (with a few exceptions)

Managed a Complete Game Clear, even though some bosses were stubborn, especially a spider boss in Hell Catacombs 2, and let's not forget the Stone Skin (PI) Apparition boss in Normal tombs that I had to bring my newly hired Act III merc over to kill the same session I killed Duriel.
 
Originally posted by Jason Maher on Mar 22, 2013:

A very belated Guardian thread: Zelda the Strafer

Guardian Zelda, level 87 Strafer

I finished this lass ages ago, but at the time I didn't feel like doing a write-up. The problem now is she is only partly equipped, and I'm not sure I can recall what her full equipment was (and by extension, some of her stats).

Basically, I wanted to Guardian a Strafer after a previous attempt faltered in Act 5 Hell (perishing with some rather expensive donated gear, which led to a rather embarrassing meltdown post by me - please don't serach for it!).

A fair chunk of her playthrough was in MP groups. But the final, painful push from WSK 2 to Baal was done solo on players 8. Ouch, is all I can say about that. I honestly can't remember too much of note about her. She's a Strafer, one of many I have made, and their play is second nature to me. Zelda used a Riphookf rom level 31 until she could it upped, then the upped Riphook for most of the rest of her journey. I ultimately changed her gear to a more safety-oriented setup, using Silence for the weapon.

Stats, Skills, and Gear (I think)

Level: 87
Experience: lots

Strength: 101
Dexterity: 261
Vitality: 148
Energy: base

Life: 942
Mana: 250

Strafe Damage (with Might): ~450-2k
AR: 8k+

Resists: 75/75/80/75

Skillz:

20 - Strafe
20 - Decoy
20 - Penetrate
13 - Valkyrie
7 - Pierce
9 - Critical Strike
1 in all the usual suspects

Gear:

Andy's + Ral
'Silence' Hydra Bow
'Harmony' Blade Bow on switch
'Fortitude' Dusk Shroud
Highlord's
LoH
Razortail
War Travs
Raven Frost
Rare ring with LRes, min dmg, AR, and replenish life
A mix of life, mana, AR, and resist charms (my HC charm collection is quite deficient) + Gheed's

Moron:

Reaper's
Kira's
Gladiator's Bane

I honestly can't remember what the previous gear setups were, aside fromt her weapon being Riphook.

Many thanks to those who donated/traded me gear, as well as those who journeyed with me, and then abandoned me on the final stretch. :badteeth:

Edit: I suppose one of you ingrates will want a readout.
Code:
1: Razortail
Sharkskin Belt
Defense: 100
Durability: 14 of 14
Required Strength: 20
Required Level: 32
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x2255578c
+15 to Dexterity
+130% Enhanced Defense
+10 to Maximum Damage
+15 Defense
Piercing Attack [33]
Attacker Takes Damage of 87 (Based on Character Level)

13: Andariel's Visage
Demonhead
'Ral'
Defense: 313
Durability: 20 of 20
Required Strength: 102
Required Level: 83
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x43adc818
+29 to Strength
+102% Enhanced Defense
Fire Resist +0%
Poison Resist +70%
+10% to Maximum Poison Resist
8% Life stolen per hit
20% Increased Attack Speed
+2 to All Skill Levels
15% Chance to cast Level 15 Poison Nova when struck
Level 3 Venom (20/20 Charges)
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Ral Rune
Inserted into a Demonhead

Fire Resist +30%

Required Level: 19
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion

14: Fortitude
Dusk Shroud
'ElSolDolLo'
Defense: 1224
Durability: 17 of 20
Required Strength: 77
Required Level: 59
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0xa096bc8d
+200% Enhanced Defense
+300% Enhanced Damage
+15 Defense
Damage Reduced by 7
Fire Resist +27%
Lightning Resist +27%
+5% to Maximum Lightning Resist
Cold Resist +27%
Poison Resist +27%
Replenish Life +7
+1 to Light Radius
25% Faster Cast Rate
12% Damage Taken Goes to Mana
20% Chance to cast Level 15 Chilling Armor when struck
+119 to Life (Based on Character Level)
Socketed (4: 4 used)

El Rune
Inserted into a Dusk Shroud

+15 Defense
+1 to Light Radius

Required Level: 11
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion

Sol Rune
Inserted into a Dusk Shroud

Damage Reduced by 7

Required Level: 27
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion

Dol Rune
Inserted into a Dusk Shroud

Replenish Life +7

Required Level: 31
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion

Lo Rune
Inserted into a Dusk Shroud

+5% to Maximum Lightning Resist

Required Level: 59
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion

15: Bone Grasp
Ring
Required Level: 60
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 91
Fingerprint: 0xc80f9909
+96 to Attack Rating
+9 to Minimum Damage
Lightning Resist +11%
Replenish Life +9
Level 1 Attract (22/22 Charges)

16: Coral Small Charm of Life
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 20
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 57
Fingerprint: 0x41b0f22a
+10 to Life
Lightning Resist +8%

17: Sapphire Small Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 32
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0xf228c72e
Cold Resist +11%

18: Sapphire Grand Charm of Life
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 22
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0xe2d1c389
+19 to Life
Cold Resist +27%

19: Steel Large Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 44
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 73
Fingerprint: 0xc303ea86
+73 to Attack Rating

20: Steel Large Charm of Strength
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 44
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xb1125f23
+2 to Strength
+72 to Attack Rating

21: Steel Grand Charm of Incineration
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 41
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 65
Fingerprint: 0x7b743938
+126 to Attack Rating
Adds 7-12 fire damage

22: Steel Grand Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 41
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x8dec5320
+125 to Attack Rating

31: Laying of Hands
Bramble Mitts
Defense: 86
Durability: 10 of 12
Required Strength: 50
Required Level: 63
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0xe1f96e93
+25 Defense
Fire Resist +50%
20% Increased Attack Speed
350% Damage to Demons
10% Chance to cast Level 3 Holy Bolt on striking

32: Gheed's Fortune
Grand Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 62
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0xf347e6a5
158% Extra Gold from Monsters
39% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Reduces All Vendor Prices 10%

33: Sharp Grand Charm of Inertia
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 21
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0xda5ebe26
+74 to Attack Rating
+7 to Maximum Damage
7% Faster Run/Walk

34: Fine Small Charm of Life
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 21
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 51
Fingerprint: 0xfd93e3b
+7 to Life
+19 to Attack Rating
+3 to Maximum Damage

35: Raven Frost
Ring
Required Level: 45
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x3137ec1c
+18 to Dexterity
+40 to Mana
+161 to Attack Rating
Adds 15-45 cold damage over 4 seconds
20% Cold Absorb
Cannot Be Frozen

36: Snake's Large Charm of Vita
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 50
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 75
Fingerprint: 0xc25a8635
+30 to Life
+22 to Mana

37: Sharp Large Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 21
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x80713cef
+46 to Attack Rating
+6 to Maximum Damage

38: Serpent's Large Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 41
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0xeb208e11
+32 to Mana

39: Lizard's Large Charm of Vita
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 50
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x81c767ed
+30 to Life
+12 to Mana

40: Large Charm of Vita
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 66
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0xab34756
+31 to Life

41: Highlord's Wrath
Amulet
Required Level: 65
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x83f960f8
Lightning Resist +35%
Adds 1-30 lightning damage
20% Increased Attack Speed
+1 to All Skill Levels
Attacker Takes Lightning Damage of 15
32% Deadly Strike (Based on Character Level)

42: War Traveler
Battle Boots
Defense: 122
Durability: 48 of 48
Required Strength: 95
Required Level: 42
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 94
Fingerprint: 0x9b245120
+10 to Strength
+10 to Vitality
+156% Enhanced Defense
+15 to Minimum Damage
+25 to Maximum Damage
+30 Maximum Durability
Attacker Takes Damage of 6
38% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
25% Faster Run/Walk
40% Slower Stamina Drain

43: Sapphire Small Charm of Strength
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 32
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x13d42d65
+2 to Strength
Cold Resist +10%

44: Silence
Superior Hydra Bow
'DolEldHelIstTirVex'
Two-Hand Damage: 31 to 212
Required Dexterity: 134
Required Strength: 107
Required Level: 63
Bow Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x8c825ff2
+200% Enhanced Damage
+12% Enhanced Damage
+1 to Attack Rating
All Resistances +75
11% Mana stolen per hit
30% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Requirements -20%
20% Increased Attack Speed
20% Faster Hit Recovery
Hit Causes Monster to Flee 25%
Hit Blinds Target +33
75% Damage to Undead
+50 to Attack Rating against Undead
+2 to All Skill Levels
+2 to Mana After Each Kill
Socketed (6: 6 used)

Dol Rune
Inserted into a Hydra Bow

Hit Causes Monster to Flee 25%

Required Level: 31
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion

Eld Rune
Inserted into a Hydra Bow

75% Damage to Undead
+50 to Attack Rating against Undead

Required Level: 11
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion

Hel Rune
Inserted into a Hydra Bow

Requirements -20%
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion

Ist Rune
Inserted into a Hydra Bow

30% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Required Level: 51
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion

Tir Rune
Inserted into a Hydra Bow

+2 to Mana After Each Kill

Required Level: 13
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion

Vex Rune
Inserted into a Hydra Bow

7% Mana stolen per hit

Required Level: 55
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion

46: Harmony
Blade Bow
'TirIthSolKo'
Two-Hand Damage: 74 to 137
Required Dexterity: 119
Required Strength: 76
Required Level: 45
Bow Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 72
Fingerprint: 0x4bda05a1
+10 to Dexterity
+214% Enhanced Damage
+9 to Minimum Damage
+9 to Maximum Damage
Regenerate Mana 20%
Adds 55-160 fire damage
Adds 55-160 lightning damage
Adds 55-160 cold damage over 2 seconds
+2 to Light Radius
+3 to Valkyrie
+2 to Mana After Each Kill
Level 10 Vigor Aura When Equipped
Level 20 Revive (25/25 Charges)
Socketed (4: 4 used)

Tir Rune
Inserted into a Blade Bow

+2 to Mana After Each Kill

Required Level: 13
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion

Ith Rune
Inserted into a Blade Bow

+9 to Maximum Damage

Required Level: 15
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion

Sol Rune
Inserted into a Blade Bow

+9 to Minimum Damage

Required Level: 27
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion

Ko Rune
Inserted into a Blade Bow

+10 to Dexterity

Required Level: 39
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion

Mercenary Items : 

1: The Gladiator's Bane
Wire Fleece
Defense: 1356
Durability: 135 of 135
Required Strength: 111
Required Level: 85
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xb5fac0f0
+171% Enhanced Defense
+50 Defense
Damage Reduced by 17
Magic Damage Reduced by 16
All Resistances +13
+103 Maximum Durability
Attacker Takes Damage of 20
30% Faster Hit Recovery
Poison Length Reduced by 50%
Cannot Be Frozen
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Scintillating Jewel
Required Level: 26
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 34
Fingerprint: 0xecec3cde
All Resistances +13

2: Kira's Guardian
Tiara
Defense: 119
Durability: 24 of 25
Required Level: 77
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0xaca4b539
+78 Defense
All Resistances +68
20% Faster Hit Recovery
Cannot Be Frozen

3: The Reaper's Toll
Thresher
Two-Hand Damage: 38 to 454
Durability: 49 of 65
Required Dexterity: 89
Required Strength: 114
Required Level: 75
Polearm Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 94
Fingerprint: 0x8012d12b
+222% Enhanced Damage
Adds 4-44 cold damage over 2 seconds
14% Life stolen per hit
Requirements -25%
Ignore Target Defense
33% Deadly Strike
33% Chance to cast Level 1 Decrepify on striking
 
Originally posted by JoeBruce on Apr 29, 2009:

Guardian Crazy Cho - The "100% vanilla" Amazon

Warning - verbose posting ahead


Wow - where to begin? I suppose I'll address the thread title, because if you're like me you're dying to know what's up with those quotes. They are there simply to antagonize you :whistling:

But seriously, I wrote it like that because vanilla means different things to different people - so here's what it means to me: This character utilized no 3rd party programs to aid in her quest. I don't play with RWM/RRM, but like most SPers I use a muling program (ATMA, to be specific). However, when I set out to make this character, I decided she would receive no extended stash. She would just use the handy little crate that the game designers provided her, and she would attempt to go through as much of the game as she could without any outside help or influence. Granted, there were plenty of occasions when her character file was opened in ATMA to mule things off (I'm not throwing away elite unique's I don't even have in softcore - more on that later), but once an item left her possession she never saw it again. Additionally, this was a single-pass character. There were a few occasions (especially after a long hiatus of playing) where she had to traverse already cleared areas, but the only thing she ever got out of those rare occassions was a sol rune in act five normal (and I finished the game with two sol runes still in her stash, so it's inconsequential).

With that being said - this character has been a long time coming. I'm not exactly sure, but I know I started her over two years ago. When started she was my only hardcore character (I now have several scattered throughout normal, plus random tournament characters). Once she got to somewhere in Act 2 nightmare I started a word file with notes on her adventures. Upon completion I have about 12 pages of stuff, so I'm going to do what I can to scale it down. Here's a "quick" recap of her earlier days (if you're just interested in her exploits through Hell see below, but shame on you for skipping my chronicle):

As my first single player Hardcore character, I decided to make a tribute to my first hardcore character ever, made years ago on B.net. It was an amazon of the same name and build (editors' note: the name is adapted from my younger days when I played Age of Empires 2, and the unique chinese archer the "chu ko nu" - those familiar with the game will know that a multishot zon would be far better suited to this name, but oh well, sue me (actually don't I have negative dollars). The editor would also like to add that this character should have been named "I Need Mana," because that was her battle-cry for basically every encounter). The build is what I believe is referred to as a Magezon - maxed Freezing and Immolation arrows. Extra points would go into synergies, valkyrie, and pierce. I would start at /players 5, to limit all the gems/runes I was sure would fill up my stash.

Now, when I first made this character I didn't know nearly as much as I do now about her skills and build development. As such, she has way too much dexterity. But, I had wanted to be able to use most any bow I found, and I thought that I would be using a lot of mana leech. So much for those ideas. Still, throughout normal and nightmare she did try to get as much physical damage and mana leech as possible (although in hindsight both were very negligible). I netted a mana leech amulet somewhere in act three, and was using Cleglaw's gloves, which I had picked up back in act one. My first truly useful, long-term item came (amazingly enough) from Anya's quest reward:

Code:
Bramble Bolt
Reflex Bow
Two-Hand Damage: 12 to 43
(Amazon Only)
Required Dexterity: 60
Required Strength: 35
Required Level: 20
Bow Class - Fast Attack Speed
+40% Enhanced Damage
+90 to Attack Rating
+17 to Maximum Damage
Adds 1-25 lightning damage
20% Increased Attack Speed
103% Damage to Undead
+76 to Attack Rating against Undead
+1 to Bow and Crossbow Skills (Amazon Only)

My biggest problem upon entering Nightmare was a mercenary weapon. Baal dropped me the unique Scythe, which I upgraded and socketed with an Amn rune, but that was working pretty poorly by Act two or so. My first decent rune drop came in the Catacombs when I found Io. I was actually hoping for a Lum to make smoke - but when life gives you lemons, you make a "Black" runeword in a flail for some crushing blow. By Act 2 I had nothing useful on my weapon switch, and when I found myself in possession of a 3-socket flail, 2 socket shield, and all the necessary runes, I made said Black and Rhyme to go along with it. It would prove to be one of the best decisions I made for this character.

By Act three I had managed to socket a gothic plate and stuff it with 4 topazes, and then the uniques started coming. My merc finally received a new weapon when the Spire of Honor dropped in Upper Kurast. Shortly after I found a normal Partizan (after seeing low quality, superior, and 1 socket partizans all through the act). I had all the runes available, so I socketed the weapon with the cube and got lucky with 5. I made Honor and all of a sudden the mercenary was rocking. It's too bad this would be his last weapon upgrade for the rest of the game. I almost forgot about my crushing-blow weapon switch in the fight with Mephisto, but used it the end to bring the demon down.

Here's a little exerpt from my notes document about Act 4:

"I took a rather long hiatus from this character after reaching the river of flame and completing the hell forge quest. It was apparently something disappointing and forgettable, because I have no decent rune in my stash; probably a sol. Since I went for a lengthy period of time without playing, I don't remember the beginning of Act 4 very well, but it is safe to say I made it through alive. Found a decent pair of rare boots, with faster run, cold resist, and 9% mf. Other than that, no equipment changes. I decided to use my levels and quest reward points on Freezing Arrow, because my physical damage was pretty negligible by now, and I knew there would be a lot of fire resistant enemies ahead of me.
The rest of the river and the chaos sanctuary went slow and steady, with a handful of trips to town for arrows and revivals. Diablo was handled with respect, but proved just as susceptible to my crushing blow setup as previous bosses. The mercenary actually lasted for a little while, maybe to half Diablo's health. After he was down to around a quarter, things were starting to get hairy being so close, and I had to run for some health potions -- there were numerous ones still on the ground. In the end, I killed Diablo without having to go to town, and with seven arrows left in my quiver. He dropped a face of horror mask and a blade of ali baba. At least he gave me some uniques."

Crazy Cho started Act Five Nightmare at level 66.

My first really exciting drop came in the Bloody Foothills in Nightmare - Rattlecage armor and Cat's Eye amulet. I gambled a rare bow with +max damage per level and my first mana leech ring (it took 69 levels and 9.5 acts to find one) As you can see, I was still stuck on that physical damage/leech idea. Notable finds within the act include mavina's belt and a 14 resist all grand charm. Players was increased to 8 in the Glacial Trail, in order to gain as much experience as possible before Hell. Baal dropped nothing useful. I finished Nightmare at 74. My imbue was crap and I had nothing to socket so I saved it.

Entering Hell, Crazy Cho was under-leveled and lacked proper gear; this would be no cake-walk. My Hel rune was used to un-socket my armor, and two of the four slots were used to ensure I had positive resistances. I picked up a pair of gloves with 29% fire resistance and +1 passive skills. Resitance rings were donned, and most of my MF was gone. It was hard. I stopped playing her for almost a year.

Hell

I hope you've stayed with me so far. Because we're now caught up to (almost) present day. I started this character back up on the 14th of April. Throughout Hell, I was going through almost constant gear changes. I managed to shop a pair of boots with 30% faster run and 38 lightning resistance which I wore up until my final fight with Baal. I switched some gear around to gain more magic find, but ended up with negative fire and poison resistance, though I had 18 cold, 56 lightning, 109% mf, and 80% faster run (mavina's belt, cat's eye, and the boots).

I played at /players 3 until the Underground passage, when I had to skip level 2 after I got too overwhelmed and backed out, too afraid to go back down into the madness (it would have been instant death). The pit was also done at /players 3, and another attempted stair-trap was foiled this time. I had saved a Matriarchal bow to imbue, but decided it was crap and I tossed in favor of a rare composite bow with the fools' prefix I was using. In hindsight this Mat bow would have been better, because it had IAS, +1 skills, and lightning damage, but I had yet to convince myself that AR was useless for this character (she definately does more damage when she hits enemies, but the explosions from Freezing and Immolation arrow go off regardless). Andariel was also taken down at /players3, and surprisngly enough I got my first decent boss drop (the drops through nightmare were crap). Good thing it was basically the worst roll ever, to temper my excitement.

Act two is when I finally realized that physical damage and leech were things I should simply not bother with, and I made a switch when I found a rare long bow with +1 bow skills. I also got a lucky drop in an almost forgotten corner of the dry hills, and found a +1 bow skills grand charm. The desert also granted me an upgrade to my mercenary's blood helm. I had my first NDE in the maggot lair when I got a little too close to one of the dead-end chambers while amp'd. The claw viper temple was a challenge, and decoy was swiftly becoming my new best friend. The no-drop on Hell Fangskin always annoys me.

The winds of fortune shifted in my direction while I was clearing out the false tombs with this amazing game changing drop. I cannot begin to describe my excitement upon seeing this item on the ground. Literally the perfect bow for an Immolation Arrow amazon. It meant those extra skills in pierce and extra stats in dex were basically wasted, but I didn't care.

Overall, the tombs were very hard on my poor mercenary, with lots of poison damage and unleechable enemies, but I made another magic find upgrade when I realized I had four perfect topazes lying around and socketed them into an Artisan's great helm. This dropped to let me know it was working. All tombs were cleared with lots of mercenary resurrecting and potion drinking - I spent a lot of money drinking with Lysander.

Finally the Duriel fight was upon me. I was prepared for a constant running and firing of immolation arrow with narrow, hair-raising, heart-pounding misses as Duriel chased me about his tiny sanctuary. Geared up with +mana gear and my faster run/walk setup, I entered the cave. Mercenary and valkyrie tanked, I stood far far away and shot exploding arrows of death. Both held up for quite some time. Duriel was easy. I went back to town once to change into my mf gear, and was rewarded with one of the most astounding Duriel drops I've ever seen (hint: not good).

Act three proceeded smoothly, with my newly-found Kuko and steadily increasing power. I decided to forego fire resistance in favor of as much magic find as possible, since it seemed to do so well for me at the end of Act 2. (It did here too: I started seeing a lot more gold items drop.) My mercenary was usually pretty reliable, and when he wasn't my valkyrie was castable at level 19, meaning she was incredibly sturdy, and getting very good at the stabbing people in the face maneuver.

Flayers were annoying, but went down quickly enough. There were a lot of lightning and poison immune enemies in this act (at least at the beginning), which was nice. The big tree creatures are a pain but immolation arrow handled them well enough. No real stair traps through the temples, but it had my heart racing regardless. A very nice surprise at the ruined temple made me consider investing my spare stat points in strength, but I was still way short and decided kuko was plenty effective.

When I got travincal I ditched the mf gloves for fire resistance, and cautiously cleared out all the dangerous casters throughout the place. No real problems, and with a bit of coaxing I had killed the council (2 rare rings, but neither any good) and made my way into the Durance of Hate. I generally like the outdoor areas of Act three, and severely dislike all of the dungeons, Durance 2 especially. It took a while, but Crazy Cho proved formidable enough to kill everything, use the handy moat trick on mephisto, and scored a decent drop (the belt may be useful, and it's too bad she's not a javazon). She steps through the infernal gate at just under level 83.

Something became very apparent shortly after I started act four: my mercenary needed a gear change. I switched out the Crown of Thieves for a Tal's Mask picked up in Kurast, but he hadn't had an armor or (more importantly) weapon change for the entirety of Hell. Plus, the Flee on his Rattlecage (which he'd been using for all of Hell) was starting to get very annoying. The venom lord-type monsters, all fire immune, took many many freezing arrows to bring down, and I was getting very tired of chasing them all across the map when my mercenary sent them running. Luckily I found a Boneflesh from the Plains of Despair: a bit more life leech and open wounds, a nice substitute for the crushing blow.

So Crazy Cho (abbreviated as "CC") plodded on, much as she's done through Hell. Lots of gloams in the second area, and so she geared up with all the lightning resistance and extra life she could. She had already made a switch in belt and rings to get more mana, which greatly reduced the (still) frequent trips to town. If I haven't mentioned it already CC has a serious problem with blue potions. A level up and the Izual quest allowed her to beef up both her cold and fire attacks. Stygian Hags and their spawn fell amidst immolatory flame, Pit Lords and their kin shattered at the feet of mercenary and valkyrie. Nothing could stop them (as long as we maintained enough cash to keep up her drinking habit and continuous mercenary resurrections). A notable find were the 27% chance guards, exchanged for the 5% mf boost and lots of extra gold find.

Approaching the Hellforge, my mind raced with possibilities. I was prepared for just about anything, having different possibilities in mind for whatever may drop. I was pleasantly surprised. For this I was thinking duress. The mercenary would love it, and it might even be handy on CC herself in a pinch. Now that I had the goods I simply needed a 3-socket armor and a shael rune (or sol + chipped sapphire, since I had 2 sol runes), and I would have a very nice armor. We will hope. Spoiler: the Um never got used.

The Chaos Sanctuary was annoying. I had two unique Oblivion Knights to welcome me. I started noticing a serious negative trend in my retirement gold, as the mercenary (and valkyrie) fell to the dreaded iron maiden. Finally all was cleared, and I prepared to fight the deadly Infester of Souls. I had the auto-trap map role so I made a portal, hit the seal, and ran back from the waypoint. It was not necessary: a few potions *cough* kept everybody chill and we whittled the group down to bring out Diablo himself.

Running back to town to equip all my resist gear and random charms (did I mention I found a perfect small charm of vitality?), I met Diablo on his big flaming pentagram thingy. We had a fun time, he threw a lot of fire at me. My companions were mostly dead, and I tried to stay as far away as possible whilst shooting him with immolation arrows. There was a heart-stopping moment when he landed a bone prison on me, then started up with his firestorm (mind you I have around 20 fire resistance). I took the opportunity to drink my last red and a few full rejuvs as I desperately shot arrows at the prison. I broke free and made my way through a town portal to take a few seconds and allow my circulatory system to recover. The drop was less than stellar, but I though about keeping the armor for the mercenary (10% pdr) -- and why couldn't the Tiara roll unique?


Act Five

I really couldn't believe she'd made it this far. I was so close I could almost taste it. CC had some decent resistance gear available in her stash, but was still donning around 170% magic find in her attempts to find a new mercenary weapon. She also has a very nice ethereal rare belt - 22% light resistance, 19% fire, 17 FHR - but it is down to its final durability point, and she's using gloom's trap for the life and mana boost.So with all of this in consideration, CC proceeded onto the Bloody Foothills.

What fun. Spear-throwing cats and quill rats (oh my!). With piercing javelins and tiny needles (which blended in perfectly with the falling snow, btw -- damn scenery) flying everywhere, slow missiles was used extensively. Both were fire immune so Immolation arrow was reserved for catapults and the battle at the top with Shenk. Another annoying aspect of this area was the poison attack from the quill rats (and maybe the others too, who knows?) With negative 60 poison resistance, I made it a habit to carry around an antidote or two, but I was still making trips back to town for health potions almost as much as mana (a first for her).

After trouncing the overseer CC continued into the Highlands. Fire immune enslaved and burning archers -- looks like freezing arrow and slow missiles are going to have another big show. Oh wait more piercing javelins flying in from all directions. Another area with lots of ranged attackers. A boss skeleton archer pack (right) and the super unique lasher monster (left) gave me a very interesting drop. The river of flame dungeon had horror archers, with their insane magic arrows and poison damage. Things were getting very edgy, but very fun at the same time. Still she was victorious.

The barbarians were rescued, and then the Plateau (with dreaded imps on their stupid towers) and Pit of Acheron (burning mages with Horadrim resurrectors and Carvers) were cleared. More uniques were found (including a second glooms trap, offering 4 extra defense), but none useful to me. With Thresh Socket eating tundra, CC ventured into the Crystalline passage in search of her old friend, Anya. I had a decent monster roll: Leapers (CI), Succubi (FI), and Cold Mages. However, I found the waypoint rather quickly and decided it would be a good time for a break. Hopefully the next roll was as nice.

My monster re-roll brought back the Cold mages, but changed out the other two for rogue archers and vipers -- nasty but manageable. I made my way to the Frozen River to find it filled with more vipers, ghosts, and gloams. Very nasty, and I donned a lightning resist ring instead of my nagel, and brought out my 1 durability-remaining belt to max out my lightning resistance. It was stressful but I made it through without too much trouble. Lots of decoys were killed in the rescuing of Anya, who gave me a rare Grand Matron bow for my troubles. Granted it was crap, but still nice to see an elite. I decided to put Nihlathak on hold and my way to the Glacial Trail.

The good news was there were reanimated monsters -- slow and vulnerable to fire. The bad news was the fire-immune Blood Lords. It took usually two mana potions to take one down, and my mercenary couldn't handle two at the same time without assistance. I believe I encountered three Blood Lord boss packs in all (two at one time), and this guy gave me some trouble, but I managed. At first I really didn't think I'd be able to handle the blood lords, but patience was the name of the game. The Drifter cavern brought back rogue archers and ghosts, and tossed in those big frozen things -- no problems, as decoy and slow missiles were at this point my two favorite skills. So favorite I almost dropped my clvl 84 skill point into slow missiles, but decided with exploding arrow again.

After finding the way point at the base of the Frozen Tundra I went after that "treacherous snake" Nihlathak. I dislike his Halls. Even more so because all my great mf rolls come up with bad item rolls: failed set and failed unique (extra durability on blue items signifies it was supposed to be a set, while for rares it was supposed to be a unique; it is failed either because the monster cannot drop the item, or, in this case, it doesn't not exist). I did get one nice item - Thundergod's Vigor - to stick into my hardcore stash, as well as a 4 socket wyrmhide (468 defense) and a +3 bow skills, 10% superior Grand Matron bow, so it wasn't all bad -- but if that rare had rolled as a different elite polearm my mercenary would have been much happier.

Nihlathak himself was dispatched in due course -- his level had horror archers (with cold arrows) fire immune arachs (with nasty poison damage which kept killing my minions), and the unique, transparent ape creatures from act three (physical immune, I forget what they're called in this area). I donned any fire resistance gear I had, although I only took one hit from a corpse explosion, which drained ~1/3 of my life. My valkyrie had an amp-damage mod which came out on Nihlathak, and the battle was over. I now know for a fact that personalizing an ethereal item does not improve it's durability (I remember reading this somewhere, but I know I've seen it work on non-ethereal items).

Back through the Frozen Tundra and into the Ancients Way, I finally found myself on the Summit. I prepared for a lengthy ancients battle. I'm glad I did, too. I probably had to re-roll the ancients at least 15-20 times. At first I would check their stats, but after a few times I just focused on trying to split them up. As my mercenary kept dying quickly and my potion supply was running low, I was really starting to think I wouldn't be able to win this battle. But, as always, she managed to prevail. Getting a Fire-immune only talic and a lightning/cold immune madawac at the base of the hill allowed me to take those two out first. Afterwards I went hunting for Korlic, who had a great roll (Stone Skin/Magic Resistant). My mercenary's open wounds was about the only thing chipping away at him, and I was afraid I did not have enough health potions to keep the mercenary alive long enough to kill him. Lobbing magic arrows was doing nothing, and I searched frantically for some way to aid my mercenary I suddenly remembered the ace up my sleeve: I still had the "black" flail on switch! A little crushing blow (with 52% chance to hit!) helped get the job just in time (zero healing potions and 1 full rejuv left).

The Worldstone went smoothly for the first two levels (although the ghoul lords on level one were annoying). Level three had two easy monster types and Death Lords. They were resiliant foes, but not resiliant enough (my "black" flail gets another honorable mention). The throne room had Pit Lords, those cold immune Succubi, and Gloams. Nothing survived. Steady potion drinking was the name of the game, and Baal's minions fell amidst incendiary arrows and iced projectiles. Finally the last battle was at hand. Baal opted to clone himself right off the bat, so I said screw that noise and went back to town to gamble away the last of my gold (I had a full stash at that point). I netted a really nice sorceress circlet and some boots with cold/fire resistance, but that was it. I forgot to leave any gold to resurrect the mercenary, so he was gone pretty quick. The fight took a little while, and I killed at least two Baal clones, but eventually the real one fell and her long journey was finally finished.

The Stats:

Code:
Guardian Crazy Cho: Level 85 Amazon

Stats (w/ gear):

Str:    75       78
Dex:    195     211
Vit:    220     235
Eng:     15      39

Life:     878    943
Mana:     141    316

Skills:
Immolation Arrow:   20     28
Freezing Arrow:     20     25
Exploding Arrow:    14     19
Cold Arrow:         10     15
Valkyrie:           13     19 (pre-buff)
Pierce:              6      7

1 point in all other passive skills.

Gear: As I stated above in my rant, she changed gear a lot throughout the quest. This is what she finished hell with.

Code:
Kuko Shakaku
Cedar Bow
Two-Hand Damage: 25 to 73
Required Dexterity: 49
Required Strength: 53
Required Level: 33
Bow Class - Normal Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 83
Fingerprint: 0x2b955a09
+153% Enhanced Damage
Adds 40-180 fire damage
+3 to Immolation Arrow (Amazon Only)
Piercing Attack [50]
Fires Explosive Arrows
+3 to Bow and Crossbow Skills (Amazon Only)

Gemmed Gothic Plate
'RalThul'
Defense: 133
Durability: 55 of 55
Required Strength: 70
Required Level: 23
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 47
Fingerprint: 0x616e7861
Fire Resist +30%
Cold Resist +30%
48% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Socketed (4: 4 used)

Order Torc
Amulet
Required Level: 49
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x3cee87b8
+19 to Energy
+13 to Mana
Regenerate Mana 7%
Magic Damage Reduced by 2
Lightning Resist +39%
+1 to Amazon Skill Levels
6% Faster Cast Rate
^a one-time, completely random craft that turned out to be awesome; made in Act 3 hell

Grim Turn
Ring
Required Level: 37
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 60
Fingerprint: 0x6ae3e4cb
+3 to Strength
+5 to Energy
+90 to Mana
+89 to Attack Rating
All Resistances +4
Adds 1-5 fire damage

Chance Guards
Chain Gloves
Defense: 27
Durability: 16 of 16
Required Strength: 25
Required Level: 15
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x17252a1b
+22% Enhanced Defense
+25 to Attack Rating
+15 Defense
200% Extra Gold from Monsters
27% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+2 to Light Radius

Amber Greaves of Speed
Defense: 14
Durability: 24 of 24
Required Strength: 70
Required Level: 29
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 81
Fingerprint: 0x5e0443f8
Lightning Resist +38%
30% Faster Run/Walk
^worn throughout hell, but these were gambled for the Baal fight:

Dire Nails
Greaves
Defense: 12
Durability: 24 of 24
Required Strength: 70
Required Level: 26
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x2d032b66
+5 to Dexterity
Fire Resist +37%
Cold Resist +21%
11% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Repairs 1 durability in 33 seconds

Corpse Finger
Heavy Bracers
Defense: 70
Durability: 16 of 16
Required Strength: 58
Required Level: 25
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 65
Fingerprint: 0x163d17a6
+57% Enhanced Defense
Fire Resist +29%
+1 to Passive and Magic Skills (Amazon Only)
^used for pre-buffing valkyrie, along with a +3 passive coronet and a +2 passive amulet

*Weapon Switch*
Black
Flail
'ThulIoNef'
One-Hand Damage: 2 to 52
Durability: 30 of 30
Required Dexterity: 35
Required Strength: 41
Required Level: 35
Mace Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 48
Fingerprint: 0xb00e97ff
+10 to Vitality
+120% Enhanced Damage
+200 to Attack Rating
Magic Damage Reduced by 2
Adds 3-14 cold damage over 3 seconds
Knockback
15% Increased Attack Speed
150% Damage to Undead
40% Chance of Crushing Blow
Level 4 Corpse Explosion (12/12 Charges)
Socketed (3: 3 used)

Rhyme
Grim Shield
'ShaelEth'
Defense: 117
Chance to Block:  65%
Durability: 70 of 70
Required Strength: 58
Required Level: 29
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 49
Fingerprint: 0xfcb5ece5
+20% Increased Chance of Blocking
Regenerate Mana 15%
All Resistances +25
50% Extra Gold from Monsters
25% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
40% Faster Block Rate
Cannot Be Frozen
Socketed (2: 2 used)

Mercenary Gear:

Code:
Honor
Partizan
'AmnElIthTirSol'
Two-Hand Damage: 97 to 204
Durability: 61 of 65
Required Dexterity: 67
Required Strength: 113
Required Level: 27
Polearm Class - Slow Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 54
Fingerprint: 0xd40a15c7
+10 to Strength
+160% Enhanced Damage
+250 to Attack Rating
+9 to Minimum Damage
+9 to Maximum Damage
7% Life stolen per hit
Replenish Life +10
+1 to Light Radius
+1 to All Skill Levels
+2 to Mana After Each Kill
25% Deadly Strike
Socketed (5: 5 used)

Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest
Death Mask
Defense: 126
Durability: 17 of 20
Required Strength: 55
Required Level: 66
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 84
Fingerprint: 0x392808d3
+60 to Life
+30 to Mana
+45 Defense
All Resistances +15
10% Life stolen per hit
10% Mana stolen per hit

Boneflesh
Plate Mail
Defense: 235
Durability: 55 of 60
Required Strength: 65
Required Level: 26
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 84
Fingerprint: 0x7ca5ef57
+101% Enhanced Defense
+35 to Attack Rating
5% Life stolen per hit
25% Chance of Open Wounds
^used the Rattlecage until Act4 hell

Well I think that should about do it. I might post some screenshots of the LCS tomorrow - I am very burnt out on making this post. I've never done one nearly this large, or with all the screenshots and all. Let me know if anything is cooky or not working, or if there's something else you want to know about I didn't add.

This is my first true guardian (I had one back in Skunkbelly's "Pass it on" tournament number 2 - but I don't really count that since those characters were played by a number of different people). She was quite an accomplishment, and I am very proud (in case you couldn't tell by my gi-normous post). With that being said, I'd like to thank the SPF for keeping me addicted to D2 over the years. I'd also like to thank my valkyrie, decoy, and slow missiles - I couldn't have done this without you guys. Emilio deserves an Honorable Mention - he certainly died enough to earn it. Also thank you to Akara, Lysander, Ormus, Jamela, and Malah, for selling me all those mana potions.

And lastly, thanks to those that read at least half of this.
 
Originally posted by @Kitteh on Feb 24, 2018:

Guardian #4 - Caessa - A Constantly Distracted Strafe and Frozen Arrow Amazon




Caessa is a Guardian! This character is the slowest Guardian I think that I've had, almost 24 hours - too much distraction. She was built mostly for nostalgia (Lycander's/strafe) and I enjoyed her greatly until the last few hours, at which point I began to get bored of her and had to push to the end a bit. Still, she did find a Sur rune and had an amusing Ancients fight in Hell :) She also found a 5@res small charm at some point.



Stats
Name: Caessa
Class: Amazon
Experience: 1043301233
Level: 84

Naked/Gear
Strength: 93/93
Dexterity: 239/246
Vitality: 163/163
Energy: 15/15
HP: 705/746
Mana: 139/139
Stamina: 310/310
Defense: 59/61
AR: 1165/1280

Fire: 128/**/28
Cold: 127/87/27
Lightning: 92/52/-8
Poison: 68/28/-32

MF: 0 Block: 34
GF: 0
FR/W: 3
FHR: 0
IAS: 0
FCR: 0

Magic Arrow: 1/1
Fire Arrow: 0/0
Cold Arrow: 1/1
Multiple Shot: 1/1
Exploding Arrow: 0/0
Ice Arrow: 10/10
Guided Arrow: 1/1
Strafe: 20/20
Immolation Arrow: 0/0
Freezing Arrow: 20/20

Inner Sight: 1/1
Critical Strike: 1/1
Dodge: 1/1
Slow Missiles: 1/1
Avoid: 1/1
Penetrate: 13/13
Decoy: 1/1
Evade: 1/1
Valkyrie: 20/20
Pierce: 1/1

Jab: 0/0
Power Strike: 0/0
Poison Javelin: 0/0
Impale: 0/0
Lightning Bolt: 0/0
Charged Strike: 0/0
Plague Javelin: 0/0
Fend: 0/0
Lightning Strike: 0/0
Lightning Fury: 0/0


Gear
String of Ears
Demonhide Sash
Defense: 103
Durability: 22 of 22
Required Level: 29
Required Strength: 20
Fingerprint: 0x49a1dd11
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
8% Life stolen per hit
+152% Enhanced Defense
+15 Defense
Damage Reduced by 14%
Magic Damage Reduced by 14
+10 Maximum Durability

Duriel's Shell
Cuirass
Defense: 657
Durability: 150 of 150
Required Level: 41
Required Strength: 65
Fingerprint: 0x7cc8949f
Item Level: 82
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+172% Enhanced Defense
+105 Defense (Based on Character Level)
+15 to Strength
+84 to Life (Based on Character Level)
Cold Resist +30%
All Resistances +20
Lightning Resist +28%
Cannot Be Frozen
+100 Maximum Durability
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Ambergris Jewel

Ambergris Jewel
Jewel
Required Level: 14
Fingerprint: 0x1856d65
Item Level: 38
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Lightning Resist +28%

Harmony
Superior Large Siege Bow
TirIthSolKo
Two Hand Damage: 47 - 169
Durability: 27 of 44
Required Level: 39
Required Strength: 80
Required Dexterity: 95
Fingerprint: 0x11ad9b83
Item Level: 55
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Level 10 Vigor Aura When Equipped
282% Enhanced Damage
+9 to Minimum Damage
+9 to Maximum Damage
Adds 55 - 160 Fire Damage
Adds 55 - 160 Lightning Damage
Adds 55 - 160 Cold Damage Over 2 Secs (60 Frames)
+6 to Valkyrie
+10 to Dexterity
Regenerate Mana 20%
+2 to Mana after each Kill
+2 to Light Radius
Level 20 Revive (25/25 Charges)
4 Sockets (4 used)
Socketed: Tir Rune
Socketed: Ith Rune
Socketed: Sol Rune
Socketed: Ko Rune

Peasant Crown
War Hat
Defense: 108
Durability: 12 of 12
Required Level: 28
Required Strength: 20
Fingerprint: 0x6a0588c2
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to All Skills
+15% Faster Run/Walk
+100% Enhanced Defense
+20 to Vitality
+20 to Energy
Replenish Life +7
Lightning Resist +30%
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Ort Rune

Ort Rune
Required Level: 21
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: Adds 1 - 50 Lightning Damage
Armor: Lightning Resist +30%
Shields: Lightning Resist +35%

Atma's Scarab
Amulet
Required Level: 60
Fingerprint: 0x1bffdcb2
Item Level: 64
Version: Expansion 1.10+
5% Chance to cast level 2 Amplify Damage on striking
20% Bonus to Attack Rating
Adds 40 Poison Damage Over 4 Secs (100 Frames)
Poison Resist +75%
Attacker Takes Damage of 5
+3 to Light Radius

Hailstone Slippers
Wyrmhide Boots
Defense: 122
Durability: 12 of 12
Required Level: 45
Required Strength: 50
Fingerprint: 0x66ac9eff
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+95% Enhanced Defense
+9 to Dexterity
Lightning Resist +37%
Poison Resist +40%
19% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Repairs 1 Durability in 20 Seconds

Laying of Hands
Bramble Mitts
Defense: 87
Durability: 12 of 12
Required Level: 63
Required Strength: 50
Fingerprint: 0xccacd616
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
10% Chance to cast level 3 Holy Bolt on striking
+20% Increased Attack Speed
+350% Damage to Demons
+25 Defense
Fire Resist +50%


Scintillating Ring of the Mind
Ring
Required Level: 59
Fingerprint: 0xae87a086
Item Level: 76
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+6 to Energy
All Resistances +13

Shadow Circle
Ring
Required Level: 65
Fingerprint: 0xde82bc89
Item Level: 82
Version: Expansion 1.10+
8% Chance to cast level 5 Chain Lightning on attack
+120 to Attack Rating
7% Life stolen per hit
+5 to Dexterity
+32 to Mana
Fire Resist +7%

Lycander's Aim
Grand Matron Bow
Two Hand Damage: 63 - 248
Durability: 52 of 55
Required Level: 65
Required Strength: 108
Required Dexterity: 152
Fingerprint: 0x3334f7e9
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to Bow and Crossbow Skills (Amazon Only)
+2 to Amazon Skill Levels
+40% Increased Attack Speed
175% Enhanced Damage
Adds 25 - 50 Damage
5% Mana stolen per hit
+20% Enhanced Defense
+20 to Dexterity
+20 to Energy
Required Level +7
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Shael Rune

Plus, a bunch of resist/ar charms.

Mercenary

Name: Emilio
Race: Desert Mercenary
Type: Off-Nightmare
Experience: 71984610
Level: 84
Dead?: false

Naked/Gear
Strength: 184/194
Dexterity: 148/158
HP: 1727/1825
Defense: 1274/2299
AR: 1898/1898

Fire: 184/144/84
Cold: 214/174/114
Lightning: 184/144/84
Poison: 184/144/84


Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest
Death Mask
Defense: 107
Durability: 20 of 20
Required Level: 66
Required Strength: 55
Fingerprint: 0xa6e1d9f1
Item Level: 55
Version: Expansion 1.10+
10% Mana stolen per hit
10% Life stolen per hit
+45 Defense
+98 to Life
+30 to Mana
All Resistances +15
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Perfect Ruby


Treachery
Great Hauberk
ShaelThulLem
Defense: 918
Durability: 26 of 26
Required Level: 56
Required Strength: 108
Fingerprint: 0xb23e2a37
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
5% Chance to cast level 15 Fade when struck
25% Chance to cast level 15 Venom on striking
+2 to Assassin Skill Levels
+45% Increased Attack Speed
+20% Faster Hit Recovery
Cold Resist +30%
50% Extra Gold from Monsters
Ethereal
3 Sockets (3 used)
Socketed: Shael Rune
Socketed: Thul Rune
Socketed: Lem Rune


Obedience
Cryptic Axe
HelKoThulEthFal
Two Hand Damage: 155 - 705
Durability: 45 of 65
Required Level: 59
Required Strength: 132
Required Dexterity: 83
Fingerprint: 0x376fca57
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
30% Chance to cast level 21 Enchant when you Kill an Enemy
+40% Faster Hit Recovery
370% Enhanced Damage
-25% Target Defense
Adds 3 - 14 Cold Damage Over 3 Secs (75 Frames)
-25% to Enemy Fire Resistance
40% Chance of Crushing Blow
+215 Defense
+10 to Strength
+10 to Dexterity
All Resistances +21
Requirements -20%
5 Sockets (5 used)
Socketed: Hel Rune
Socketed: Ko Rune
Socketed: Thul Rune
Socketed: Eth Rune
Socketed: Fal Rune


Other Caessa Videos
 
Originally posted by khuzgan on Dec 6, 2013:

Guardian Siri_V, the 1.13 untwinked strafer

Siri_V is a 1.13 strafer and was played under the following conditions:
HC, RWM enabled.
Players 8 all the way (exceptions were allowed for the first monster pack on occasions when I forgot to type the command).
Completely untwinked.
What goes off stays off (I.e. muling off allowed, but not muling on items taken off).
Get all waypoints and do all quests.
Rerunning allowed (mostly since I can't be arsed to keep track of where to restart a clearing when doing single pass).

As her name implies, Siri_V had a few predecessors who all met with unfortunate accidents. Most of them due to impatience, beeing cornered by too large a mob after trying to run for it when questing in a long streak, and one after afk-ing (to take care of some real life issues) in the wrong place and meeting with a stray fallen in act 1 hell.

Stats/skills:
Code:
Character name : Siri_V
Character type : Hardcore Amazon
Character level : 88
Character exp : 1420950385

Strength        : 121/122 base stats/with gear
Energy          : 15/15
Dexterity       : 119/140
Vitality        : 275/290
Stat Points Rem : 0
Skill Points Rem: 0

Life            : 1213 / 1363
Mana            : 145 / 145
Resistances    : 24/22/75/-3

Skills:
Strafe 20
Valkyrie 20
Decoy 20
Penetrate 20
Pierce 5
Critical strike 4
Inner sight 2
All prereqs 1
Gear:
Code:
Helm:
Rockstopper
Sallet
Defense: 224
Durability: 18 of 18
Required Strength: 43
Required Level: 36
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 43
Fingerprint: 0xac05d27
+15 to Vitality
+205% Enhanced Defense
+14% Enhanced Damage
+32 Defense
Damage Reduced by 10%
Fire Resist +39%
Lightning Resist +45%
Cold Resist +37%
37% Faster Hit Recovery
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Shadow Heart
Jewel
Required Level: 36
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0xc758382d
+14% Enhanced Damage
+32 Defense
Lightning Resist +16%
7% Faster Hit Recovery

Armor:
Artisan's Gothic Plate of the Whale
'Ort'
Defense: 132
Durability: 55 of 55
Required Strength: 70
Required Level: 37
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 74
Fingerprint: 0x95208678
+92 to Life
Lightning Resist +30%
Socketed (3: 1 used)

For the better part of the game this little beauty was filled with perfect topazes, but I decided to swap it
to gain some resistance when I encountered souls in act 5. The plan was to add a ral and a thul to it later
on but after that point none of those runes dropped.

Boots:
Bone Greaves
Chain Boots
Defense: 11
Durability: 16 of 16
Required Strength: 30
Required Level: 12
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 69
Fingerprint: 0x1826df38
+14% Enhanced Defense
Poison Resist +20%
25% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
10% Faster Hit Recovery
5% Chance to cast Level 3 Frost Nova when struck

Belt:
Siri_V's Soul Harness
Mesh Belt
Defense: 70
Durability: 16 of 16
Required Strength: 58
Required Level: 42
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 67
Fingerprint: 0xfd47913a
+15 to Life
+29 to Maximum Stamina
+73% Enhanced Defense
Lightning Resist +24%
1% Life stolen per hit
8% Chance of Open Wounds

Gloves:
Siri_V's Cleglaw's Pincers
Chain Gloves
Defense: 9
Durability: 16 of 16
Required Strength: 25
Required Level: 4
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 17
Fingerprint: 0xf0bb23c8
Knockback
Slows Target by 25%

Backup gloves in stash:
Bitter Hand
Heavy Gloves
Defense: 9
Durability: 14 of 14
Required Level: 73
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x69c6e15f
+10 to Strength
+14 to Life
+40% Enhanced Defense
+18 to Attack Rating
1% Life stolen per hit
8% Chance of Crushing Blow
Repairs 1 durability in 20 seconds

Amulet:
Chromatic Amulet of Hydra Shield
Required Level: 41
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 61
Fingerprint: 0xa66b8211
All Resistances +30
10% Chance to cast Level 3 Hydra when struck

Rings:
Scintillating Ring of Precision
Required Level: 59
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 77
Fingerprint: 0x68fbd1a1
+10 to Dexterity
All Resistances +14

Felicitous Ring of Chance
Required Level: 9
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 42
Fingerprint: 0xf779eef2
21% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Weapon:
Harmony
Siri_V's Blade Bow
'TirIthSolKo'
Two-Hand Damage: 79 to 146
Required Dexterity: 119
Required Strength: 76
Required Level: 45
Bow Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 69
Fingerprint: 0xf900cbbb
+10 to Dexterity
+235% Enhanced Damage
+9 to Minimum Damage
+9 to Maximum Damage
Regenerate Mana 20%
Adds 55-160 fire damage
Adds 55-160 lightning damage
Adds 55-160 cold damage over 4 seconds
+2 to Light Radius
+2 to Valkyrie
+2 to Mana After Each Kill
Level 10 Vigor Aura When Equipped
Level 20 Revive (16/25 Charges)
Socketed (4: 4 used)

Backup weapon for bosses:
Crushflange
Mace
One-Hand Damage: 4 to 15
Durability: 60 of 60
Required Strength: 27
Required Level: 9
Mace Class - Normal Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 94
Fingerprint: 0xbf396fd5
+15 to Strength
+51% Enhanced Damage
Fire Resist +50%
Knockback
+2 to Light Radius
150% Damage to Undead
33% Chance of Crushing Blow
Charms
Code:
Fine Large Charm of Thunder
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 18
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 52
Fingerprint: 0x23e0dd5c
+18 to Attack Rating
+1 to Maximum Damage
Adds 1-23 lightning damage

Small Charm of the Glacier
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 25
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 48
Fingerprint: 0xe1bf336f
Adds 3-6 cold damage over 1 seconds

Garnet Small Charm of Life
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 20
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 65
Fingerprint: 0x9eae5c21
+6 to Life
Fire Resist +8%

Foul Large Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 19
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 42
Fingerprint: 0xfdf68a85
+30 poison damage over 4 seconds

Shimmering Small Charm of Balance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 29
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 79
Fingerprint: 0x72adc207
All Resistances +3
5% Faster Hit Recovery

Fine Small Charm of Vita
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 39
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x6b853f7f
+20 to Life
+11 to Attack Rating
+2 to Maximum Damage

Large Charm of Winter
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 27
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 61
Fingerprint: 0x964b3d51
Adds 6-12 cold damage over 1 seconds

Small Charm of Sustenance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 17
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 54
Fingerprint: 0x3459c404
+15 to Life

Small Charm of Sustenance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 17
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 41
Fingerprint: 0xd8db098c
+13 to Life

Large Charm of Vita
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 50
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 79
Fingerprint: 0xd6ee1a4b
+27 to Life

Forked Grand Charm of Vita
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 69
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x7454b8f4
+39 to Life
+2 to Maximum Damage

Small Charm of Sustenance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 17
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 64
Fingerprint: 0x586f2ac4
+13 to Life

Fine Small Charm of Dexterity
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 21
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 81
Fingerprint: 0x2a832a0d
+1 to Dexterity
+19 to Attack Rating
+3 to Maximum Damage

Bronze Large Charm of Thunder
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 18
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 37
Fingerprint: 0xa0613b77
+16 to Attack Rating
Adds 1-25 lightning damage

Arcing Small Charm of Strength
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 57
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 83
Fingerprint: 0xaad5bd31
+1 to Strength
Adds 1-29 lightning damage

Cobalt Small Charm of the Icicle
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 20
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 41
Fingerprint: 0x4393f6b0
Cold Resist +8%
Adds 2-3 cold damage over 1 seconds

Boreal Small Charm of Vita
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 58
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 81
Fingerprint: 0xc6e53883
+16 to Life
Adds 7-10 cold damage over 1 seconds

Small Charm of Sustenance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 17
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 55
Fingerprint: 0xdd5f0249
+13 to Life
Merc gear
Code:
Helm:
Crown of Thieves
Grand Crown
Defense: 306
Durability: 46 of 50
Required Strength: 103
Required Level: 49
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 69
Fingerprint: 0x7d79ce86
+25 to Dexterity
+50 to Life
+35 to Mana
+169% Enhanced Defense
Fire Resist +33%
10% Life stolen per hit
98% Extra Gold from Monsters

Armor:
Rockfleece
Field Plate
Defense: 225
Durability: 29 of 48
Required Strength: 50
Required Level: 28
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x9b51f7bf
+5 to Strength
+113% Enhanced Defense
Damage Reduced by 5
Damage Reduced by 10%
Requirements -10%

Weapon:
Insight
Bec-de-Corbin
'RalTirTalSol'
Two-Hand Damage: 50 to 269
Durability: 52 of 55
Required Dexterity: 91
Required Strength: 133
Required Level: 27
Polearm Class - Normal Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 65
Fingerprint: 0x4ea6d987
+5 to Strength
+5 to Energy
+5 to Dexterity
+5 to Vitality
+217% Enhanced Damage
+9 to Minimum Damage
Adds 5-30 fire damage
+75 poison damage over 5 seconds
23% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+5 to Critical Strike
35% Faster Cast Rate
244% Bonus to Attack Rating
+2 to Mana After Each Kill
Level 17 Meditation Aura When Equipped
Socketed (4: 4 used)

Backup weapon for PI:
Demon's Arch
Balrog Spear
Throw Damage: 115 to 178
One-Hand Damage: 95 to 181
Quantity: 80
Required Dexterity: 95
Required Strength: 127
Required Level: 68
Javelin Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 83
Fingerprint: 0x493411ad
+188% Enhanced Damage
Adds 232-323 fire damage
Adds 23-333 lightning damage
7% Life stolen per hit
30% Increased Attack Speed
Replenishes Quantity

Bosskiller stick:
Kelpie Snare
Fuscina
Two-Hand Damage: 81 to 150
Durability: 35 of 35
Required Dexterity: 25
Required Strength: 77
Required Level: 33
Spear Class - Normal Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 49
Fingerprint: 0xadae7a7a
+10 to Strength
+171% Enhanced Damage
+30 to Minimum Damage
+50 to Maximum Damage
Fire Resist +50%
Slows Target by 75%
+1 to Life (Based on Character Level
Notable drops:
Code:
Andariel's Visage
Demonhead
Defense: 359
Durability: 18 of 20
Required Strength: 102
Required Level: 83
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 99
Fingerprint: 0x5d9a7cca
+30 to Strength
+132% Enhanced Defense
Fire Resist -30%
Poison Resist +70%
+10% to Maximum Poison Resist
10% Life stolen per hit
20% Increased Attack Speed
+2 to All Skill Levels
15% Chance to cast Level 15 Poison Nova when struck
Level 3 Venom (6/20 Charges)

This dropped from Baal. A pity it didn't get any more use, but it will come in handy ifor the cow level clearing to be done.

Gameplay

Normal
Siri_V Started out in normal with the standard procedure for single pass mf:ing described in this thread. She didn't go all out on it though, and especially she'd not let her merc do most of the killing.
Normal was pretty uneventful. Most of act 1, 2 and 3 was done using various melee weapons, and here and there a dropped javellin stack or some throwing axes until they were used up. Duriel was killed by quaffing some thawing potions and drinking loads of root beer while tanking him to prevent the merc from dying.
By the time Siri_V got down to Mehisto, the merc had beefed up some, using a cruel polearm and some rare armor, and could survive tanking him if fed some potions, while she whittled away at him with a ral-socketed bow. The next bump in the road, Diablo, left the merc dead in a few seconds and simply refused to focus on the valkyrie, so he was killed off oh so slowly, by running around shooting guided arrows and returing to town to restock on potions.

Some of her endgame equipment was aquired during the normal phase, including a mf ring that never was replaced, her mf boots and her armor. It was found in Larzuk's shop early on and it was decided that 3s was good enough and that pushing further was more fun than to stand there trying to shop a 4s one. A Skystrike dropped somewhere in the middle of act 5 and suddenly Siri_V began to pack a punch herself.


Nightmare
In act 1 nm the runes needed for Insight started to accumulate, but no base dropped. A couple of 4s crystals swords dropped though, and a few spirit swords were made and muled off. It took until act 2 before a useful 4s polearm dropped, but once the first insight in a poleaxe was made, strafing went from drinking potions all the time to keeping the arrow flying freely. In act 2, the prayer merc from normal was replaced with who was to be her trusty companion for the rest of her journey. Gulzar, the mighty desert warrior joined ranks with Siri.

The rest of nm passed rather quickly and safely, maxing out valkyrie first, then starting to build on decoy and after that filling up strafe for more damage. When the materials for a blood belt dropped, one was crafted and it was decent enough to keep for the rest of the game. By this time there had dropped a pair of Cleglaws Pincers, providing much coveted knockback and slow, though they were not in use yet as most of nm was played in full mf gear with negative resists. Diablo dropped a Magewrath and Skystrike was replaced. The Magewrath was promptly shaeled once Shenk was killed, and was kept for a long time. When a Bec-de-corbin dropped, a new insight was made for the merc and sadly it was never upgraded after that since no suitable bases would drop for her. The Crown of thieves Gulzar wore and Rockstopper also dropped somewhere in nm, though where is long lost in the shades of faded memory. With the new killing power, what was left of nm was quickly traversed. Baal dropped a Kelpie Snare which would later come in handy in some boss fights in hell, and Siri went beef hunting, though no juicy steak would drop for her.


Hell
Things began to toughen up here and the going was slow. Mf gear was replaced with what scarce survial gear was avaialble to Siri, but still resistances were around 0. Later on this was upped to about 20, and further for lightning when souls were encountered in act 5, but most of hell was done on sub-par res.
Physical immunes proved to be slow to kill, but very doable if picked apart and tanked up by the valk. A poison charm preventing healing and a couple of elemental damage charms together with open wounds dealt with what needed to be killed, even if it took 10 minutes or more for the average boss to be killed. Some phys immunes were dealt with by placing a decoy and running past them despite beeing a risky business.

The first NDE was had in the tomb of Tal Rasha. Mobbed by a ghost bosspack and backed ino a corner, Siri had to quaff all her purple potions before she got a tp up and managed to escape to town. This was followed by a few more dangerous events in the tomb, most of them including physical immune baddies in confined spaces. Regardless, she made steady but slow progress.

Her end game weapon (harmony) was made when finally, in act 3 a ko-rune dropped. This doubled her dps output and gave some much needed elemental damage to deal with immunes. The vigor aura also proved helpful to speed past some baddies before they could corner her. Up to act 5 nothing else really hurt, partly due to lucky rolls with the monster types of some areas (no phys immune soul bosses or suchlike), even if the going was slowing to a crawl in some areas.

The slingers of the open areas in act 5 proved painful, as did the succubi. Despite beeing a strafer, the defining skill of almost all act 5 areas became decoy. It was used as a diversion for splitting groups, a target to draw fire, meatshield and a means of escaping from harm. Slowly Siri progressed through the areas and managed to rescue anya. After that, it was time to take on Nihlathak. The whole trek down his dungeon was done in one session, finding the wp and slowly clearing out the areas so she and Gulzar could safely make their way forward. Damn does it take ages to separate heirophants so they won't heal each other when you lack the damage capabilities to kill them off in one barrage.

After coming down into the halls of pain, there was a sudden flash of light, and in less than 2s bth Gulzar and Valkyrie dropped. There was no time to see What mods the two viper bosses had and Siri made a quick retreat through a town portal. Concluding that it was certain suicide to enter the tp again, and that the tp stood at the bottom of the stairs, it was time to give up for the time beeing and reroll the area another day.

The next try held skeleton archers, zombies and those nasty phys immune succubi. Clearing them out was slow work and just Nihlathak's wing took the better part of an hour. After that, sniping him down from afar with strafe was easy work.

The next trial was to be the ancients, or so Siri thought, but alas, the inhabitants of the arreat plateu had other plans. Traversing the highland quickly became a sluggish hell of archers, succubi and imps trying to shoot her down from afar. A double boss pack,(archers + witches) proved extra nasty, absolutely refusing to split up the first half hour of fighting, and killing off the merc or the valk in seconds if they strayed too far in their direction. Finally, using bushes as cover and her trusty decoy, Siri was able to start killing off the minions one by one. This count as a NDE even if she wasn't hit by many missiles form the bosses themselves, since had she been and gotten stuck in hit recovery, a couple of more missiles would've hit and each of the minions shots did hurt quite alot, especially when cursed from the constant barrage hitting the nearby decoy and valk.

After that, there came a hellish fight in frozen tunnels of ancients way facing frenzytaurs and the fortunately much easier abominations and quill rats. Luckily an large portion of the frosty caverns was already cleared when she encountered an especially nasty frenzytaur boss with curse, holy freeze and stoneskin (phys immune). This little bugger was promtly parked in a far away corner of the dungeon and still killed poor Gulzar a couple of times during the herding.

Finally Siri stood at the summit ready to face the barbarian chiefs of times past. She braced herself, put up a decoy in an appropriate place, and called upon the ancient ones. They promptly responded and in an instant poor Gulzar was gone and she was alone facing them. One hit brought her within an inch of her life and she had to abandon her cause, using a magic scroll to bring her to Harrogath for healing.

After reequipping Gulzar for the fight, giving him Kelpie Snare, crafting a pair of blood gloves, and rerolling a few more very nasty combinations (might conviction), a roll with only the whirler cursed and one aura enchanted (the thrower, holy fire) proved beatable. A lucky hit from Gulzar on Madawc (the thrower) slowed him down to a crawl and parking Talic (the whirler) with the decoy, netted Siri and her companions a safe spot at the northern corner to deal with Korlic. He quickly killed the poor merc, but met his match in the sturdy valkyrie sent from the gods to help Siri. She slowly killed him off while Siri hid behind a pillar not intervening in the process of killing the trapped barbarian, who turned out to not be trapped at all, but it was not until he was down 2/3 of his life he made use of his teleportation skills to escape the deadlock. Now Siri had to start dodging his leaps and shooting magic arrows, lest she run out of the real ones before she needed them for the other ancients. The merry dance around the northernmost pillar went on for quite some time until finally <name of barb> grew tired and went home to the lodgings of the ancients for a stiff drink.

Next was the whirler. He had a more than healthy interest in the decoy and was quickly killed off with strafe while he focused on decoy and valkyrie alike. After the curse he cast ran out, Siri woke up the last one far to the south of the summit and got him placed north of a broken pillar while taking up position of the south of it. After a few tries of running back and forth shooting guided arrows to make him bleed, she remembered some words of wisdom she'd overheard in a tavern in days long past and decided to try if ghosts really did hate bow wielders more than brawlers. It turned out that they did, for every time she unslung her bow, Madawc would focus his attention right at her, while she could beat him quite alot with her spiked mace (Crushflange + the crafted blood gloves made in preparation for this fight) and he still would focus on the valk. She also tried equipping a throwing spear to stab with (Demon's Arch) but just like with the bow he went straight for her when she tried. (It seems like the AI of the ancients regard ranged weapons as a far bigger threat than melee ones when deciding what target to hit).

Finally he went down and Siri went inside the old caverns of Mount Arreat. The first floor held no nasty surprises and she quickly made her way to the second one. There she almost got fried by some souls quite a few times (several NDE trying to dode lightning bolts) and decided to return to town to reshape and refit her equipment for the current threat. The prefect topazes in her armor were removed and an ort rune put in it, and a jewel was placed in the helmet to ensure some more resistance. Thus better equipped, she slowly picked the burning ghosts apart and made her way to the wp.

The final part if the journey turned out to be almost anticlimactically easy. The biggest threat was the greater mummies lead by Achmel the cursed. Deciding to cheat a bit in necromancy, reviving a few skeletons and mummies from Achmel's pack with help of the magic powers of her trusty bow, helped Siri nullify the ressurection of what minions were left inside the throne room after luring most of the skeletons out. After splitting up wave four and five and killing the demons off by ones and twos, she finally were to face Baal. This was Gulzar's time to shine and he quickly went up to the big demon and poked it with his stick essentially shutting down the big bastard's neural system making him look like a big, rotting vegetable. Then it was harvest time and he was crushed to pieces with Siri's mace and then pelted with arrows until he finally burst like a loot pinata, revealing a golden Demonhead among the useless items that probably had caused much of his bad temper. At least I'd be pretty pissed if my belly was full of sharp objects and clanking metal, Siri thought for herself, as Gulzar donned the golden mask and that strange angel who called himself Tyrael hovered in the air before her.


Siri was played as a strafer with mainly decoy and valkyrie as backup skills and minimal investment in other backups. I decided to invest heavily in penetrate instead, since it would fit the theme better than other attack skills. I decided to trust open wounds and elemental damage from weapon and charms to deal with phys immunes and I bet this slowed progress quite alot. If I were to redo it I'd get a few more points in inner sight instead of penetrate, and focus more on magic arrow. What is left for her is the cow level in hell, where I'll be content with killing the king. If I can clear out enough to do that I can for sure clear the entire area given enough time, and knowing that, i just can't be arsed doing a full clear since there is nothing to prove to myself by doing it. Siri will probably be retired, or at least sent on a long vacation until better gear drops from other chars. Playing her (and all her predecessors) untwinked was a nice challenge that proved a huge challenge for my persistance and patience, but there is so much more in the d2 world of challenges to explore before I want to play another (or the same) strafer now.
 
Originally posted by LprMan on Sep 8, 2008:

Guardian Seraphine (15th)

Hi hi 👋

Got my 3rd amazon Guardian today. The first 2 were a strafer and a LFzon, aka the most common builds. Now I wanted to do something different, and as elemental bowazons have always had a special place in my heart...introducing:


Guardian Seraphine, lvl 85 FA/EA zon

Stats
Bow skills
Passive skills

Blessed Aim merc stats


SKILLS:

20 Cold Arrow
20 Freezing Arrow
20 Fire Arrow
20 Exploding Arrow

8 Pierce
1 Decoy

+pre-reqs


ITAMZ:

68% Kira's (15% IAS jewel)
Angelic Wings
'Harmony' Matriarchal bow
31% Skin of the Vipermagi (15%IAS jewel)
+3bow/20ias gauntlets (many thanks to darkoooo for these 😉 )
Razortail
Imp Slippers
20/228 Raven Frost
Angelic Halo

7x bow skiller (4x plain, 1x 13 life, 1x 7% frw, 1x 32% extra gold)
9x small charms with cold dmg, mana, frw...


MERC ITAMZ:

Tal's mask (15% IAS jewel)
eth 'Insight' thresher (lvl 17 Med, 244% ed, +5 CS)
'Treachery' mage plate


---


At first I want say this: I like this build a lot. Very very fun to play. I have always loved bowazons, and the elemental bow skills are :loving: They look pretty, they sound good and they work well enough for me.

I spent quite a bit time planning the build. Almost everyone knows that FA can kill effectively while adding a lot of safety. Most people ignore the amazons fire skills, because they are not as powerful. That's true, but it doesn't mean they are worthless. In the past I have made a zon who used FA and Immolation Arrow. IA dealt decent damage, but the timer really killed it. Fire Arrow has less damage, and hits less enemies per shot. Bleh. What about Exploding Arrow? Again, not as damaging as IA, but it can hit multiple targets just the same. And there is no timer. Yay, that's going to be my pick.

Next problem: attack rating. Lots of people say AR does not matter with elemetal bow skills, because the elemental splash will hit the enemies even when the arrow itself misses. However, if a missile fails the cth check, it will NOT pierce. And everyone who has ever played an amazon knows how much extra punch Pierce adds. Why to worry, FA and EA give a major AR bonus? Yes, but it is bugged and does not work. At all. In reality, those skills use your normal attack AR. Damn. Spending 83 skillpoint in the bow tree does not leave much room for anything else, so Penetrate is out. Anything else I could do to increase my AR...hm...Blessed Aim merc it is. There is another AR bug: Blessed Aim overrides the AR bonus from Penetrate. It does not matter for this build though, I have only 1 point in Penetrate. Currenty Seraphine has ~9500 AR with her normal attack.

Choosing the endgame bow was another problem. At first I was thinking about 'Melody' in a +3 mat bow for major boost to bow skills. Unfortunately it doesn't offer much else. In the end I chose 'Harmony' in a mat bow. It is fast, I get Valkyrie for free, Vigor is nice and it adds elemental damage. You know, all fire damage from gear is added to EA splash. Same applies to cold damage and FA. Extra cold damage sources lengthen the freeze duration too! And on top of all that, 'Harmony' gives 25 lvl 20 Revive charges. Nice for those tougher battles.

The low levels were easy. I could start maxing out synergies of endgame skills right away. Exploding Arrow became available at lvl 12. All I needed was a nice twinking bow and some mana leech. No need to melee and/or kill enemies one by one until lvl 30. Another nice detail: all her endgame gear (except for helm) could be equipped at clvl 45 :yes: As you can guess, both normal and NM were mostly a joke. NM forge dropped badly, oh well. Also, I practised using revives when fighting vs. NM Ancients. They couldn't do much, I think the yeti's were able to stun them, or at least their attacks put the barbs in hit recovery. I ran NM Baal until I hit clvl 77 and equipped Kira's. I didn't dare to go to hell with all resists at negatives.

In act 1 I tried to run Pits for exp, but the immunities were annoying and the archers and skellies kept killing my merc. I decided to move on and try again in Ancient tunnels. No cold immunes in there and only 1 type of fire immunes, so it was pretty easy. I leveled to 84 there. That was when I had maximized my characters damage output. Time to move on, once again. No problems whatsoever in act 2. Dealing with Duriel was convenient, thanks to revives. Act 3 was a piece of cake too. I managed to take a screenie right at the moment when Meph died (see the items in the air :crazyeyes:). Not a bad quest drop with 0% MF

Hell's forge was generous. My second Ist I think. Dunno what to do with it yet. Hell Diablo tried to do nasty things all the time. I hate his AI when playing a bowie. He ignores merc and every single minion, concentrating on making my poor gilrs life as hard as possible. His lightning attack hurts, and he trapped me in a bone cage twice. On both occasions I managed to break out before anything bad happened, but believe me, that made my heart bouncing wildly.

Hell Ancients was another annoying and potentially dangerous fight. reasons are similar to Diablo: both the thrower and leaper ignored everything else and chased me around the mountaintop. Talic died first as he was dumb enough to try fighting my army. All my minions managed to surround Madawc next to a pillar, so he fell next. Korlic was and last one and the most annoying, as he could always leap over minions, obstacles...I ended up running in circles and shooting magic arrows whenever possible. It was quite easy, thanks to Vigor aura from 'Harmony'.

Hell Baal wasn't dangerous, only annoying as hell. Tentacles, teleport, mana burn, knockback, high hp and the fact Seraphine does not have a good skill to kill bosses...yuck. On positive note: I have to kill him only once. And now it is done, yay! Couple of NDEs along the way, but nothing too serious.

I have no idea what to do with the unused stat points. I'm seriously thinking about spending them in energy. Extra str does not help, dex would only add little bit of AR...I don't feel like I need more life either. Extra energy would be a convenience thingy, allowing me to spam FA and EA longer and regenerating mana faster to spam even more. Yup, huge mana consumption is one of the downsides of this build. Seraphine uses ~70 mana per second in battle.

I've been thinking about writing a guide for this kind of a zon, but I'm not sure...

Oh, I said FA and EA are pretty skills, didn't I? Anyway, here is some firework pics:

FA is pretty: Minions of Radament getting owned
Flamethrower
Explosions
Ice, lots of ice
Freeze and burn


Thank you (if you really got this far) :yes:
 
Originally posted by Milb on Sep 22, 2006:

Guardian No. 4 - Myrine - Strafer

Just made my 4th Guardian, and I loved every minute of this one 😃

This is probably the most fun build I have tried yet, pretty safe too and extremely powerful, especially in the earlier acts of Hell.

After finding a Windforce and a M'avinas Diadem I decided I had to put them to use. It is easily the most 'expensive' character I have made in HC, I would have been gutted to lose the equipment she is wearing, but fortunately it didn't happen - but it almost did about 4 times :laugh:

I accidently walked into range of a pack of LE Archers on p3 whilst levelling in the pits, 4 arrows hit me, each of them taking about 90-95% of my life, I managed to hit a Full Rejuv after each but another hit would have killed me!

She found some nice items on the way too, a Skullders in NM WSK and a Gladiator's Bane in the Crystalline Passage. However, she had her best find today on the Frozen Tundra - a Ghostflame from a random monster, not even a unique.

Normal and NM were p8 all the way, except for bosses and NM Ancients, and Hell was all done at p1, except for a few p3 experience runs in the pits.

Here's the stats, without might, with might

Skills:
20 Strafe, Valk, Penetrate
10 Decoy
7 Critical Strike
6 Pierce
1 FA D/A/E

Gear:
M'avina's True SIght, with a 17ed 15 IAS Jewel
Tal Rasha's Armor with a 15 IAS Jewel
Windforce Shael
Atma's Scarab
Laying of Hands
Ravenfrost 227/18

Beast Whorl
Ring
Required Level: 65
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x75b74753
+6 to Maximum Stamina
+4 to Minimum Damage
Lightning Resist +13%
8% Life stolen per hit
Replenish Life +9

Glyph Lash
Mesh Belt
Defense: 37
Durability: 16 of 16
Required Strength: 58
Required Level: 34
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x527701ea
+28 to Life
Fire Resist +12%
Lightning Resist +20%
3% Life stolen per hit
73% Extra Gold from Monsters
5% Chance of Open Wounds

Glyph Greaves
Greaves
Defense: 17
Durability: 24 of 24
Required Strength: 70
Required Level: 18
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 79
Fingerprint: 0xc01bd2a0
+10% Enhanced Defense
Fire Resist +33%
Lightning Resist +38%
50% Extra Gold from Monsters
20% Faster Run/Walk

Demon Limb on switch
and charms giving AR, Life, Resists, FRW and some damage.

Might Merc with Reaper's Toll, Tal Rasha's Mask and a 3643 Defence Stone.

Can't remember NM Forge, Hell gave a Pul.

Thanks to everyone who contributed in my help thread 😃

Trying to decide which char to make next, thinking aboout a near base str Hammerdin - just need to acquire a few pieces of equipment first!

Thanks for reading! 😃
 
Originally posted by Mursilis on May 4, 2008:

Guardian Atropos: the no vitality Frost Maiden

Atropos is my second character from the No Vitality Tournament, and as it turns out also my second only Guardian. Some of you may remember Bob.

For those that aren't in the tournament, the basic premise is that no stat points may be placed into vitality. Equipment and charms that give vitality are fine, just no hard points. This is a single pass, no twinkling tournament (as is the norm).

Atropos is a level 82 Frost Maiden that uses Magic Arrow for cold immunes, so:
Cold Arrow - 20
Ice Arrow - 10
Freezing Arrow - 20
Magic Arrow - 13
Valkyrie - 20
Pierce - 1
Decoy - 2

Also one point in all prerequisites. As you can see I did make a major mistake with the Ice Arrow points. At the time, in Normal, adding points gave me the ability to freeze enemies and deal more damage quicker. I figured that maxing all three cold skills was necessary anyway. After reading up on Frost Maidens a bit more however I realized the freezing length it provides is basically negated in Hell and therefore the 9 extra points there would have been much better off in Magic arrow and Decoy.

Obviously +life and +vitality items were prized and those were equipped before anything else, except maybe lightning/fire resistance items. This resulted in some interesting stat numbers:

Strength: 100 (100)
Dexterity: 330 (345)
Vitality: 20 (20)
Energy: 50 (55)
Life: 272 (749)
Mana: 189 (294)

LCS Stats and Inventory setup

And her equipment:

Code:
Gemmed Stag Bow
'EthEth'
Two-Hand Damage: 7 to 12
(Amazon Only)
Required Dexterity: 45
Required Strength: 30
Required Level: 18
Bow Class - Normal Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 50
Fingerprint: 0xcd75f472
Adds 10-14 cold damage over 3 seconds
+99 poison damage over 7 seconds
-50% Target Defense
+2 to Bow and Crossbow Skills (Amazon Only)
Socketed (4: 4 used)

Switch (for Magic Arrow):
Hailstone Harp
Spider Bow
Two-Hand Damage: 51 to 112
Required Dexterity: 143
Required Strength: 64
Required Level: 41
Bow Class - Normal Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 60
Fingerprint: 0xdf97fe19
+125% Enhanced Damage
+78 to Attack Rating
Adds 1-3 fire damage
+50 poison damage over 5 seconds
49% Damage to Undead
+30 to Attack Rating against Undead

Storm Track
Heavy Boots
Defense: 11
Durability: 14 of 14
Kick Damage: 4 to 10
Required Strength: 18
Required Level: 18
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 60
Fingerprint: 0x56e4917f
+63% Enhanced Defense
Heal Stamina Plus 25%
Lightning Resist +40%
Repairs 1 durability in 20 seconds

Skull Casque
Circlet
'Thul'
Defense: 23
Durability: 35 of 35
Required Level: 25
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 33
Fingerprint: 0xd6ecbd14
+27 to Mana
+5 to Maximum Damage
Magic Damage Reduced by 3
Fire Resist +14%
Lightning Resist +14%
Cold Resist +44%
Poison Resist +14%
17% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Jade Ancient Armor of the Whale
'RalOrt'
Defense: 231
Durability: 60 of 60
Required Strength: 100
Required Level: 37
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 78
Fingerprint: 0x14b7dde0
+93 to Life
Fire Resist +30%
Lightning Resist +30%
Poison Resist +21%
Socketed (2: 2 used)

Chromatic Amulet of the Whale
Required Level: 41
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 61
Fingerprint: 0xa2eed60d
+98 to Life
All Resistances +21

Corruption Grasp
Ring
Required Level: 13
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 46
Fingerprint: 0x8bb9a1fb
+5 to Energy
+64 to Attack Rating
Magic Damage Reduced by 2
Cold Resist +23%

Eagle Fist
Vampirebone Gloves
Defense: 57
Durability: 14 of 14
Required Strength: 50
Required Level: 47
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 83
Fingerprint: 0x787599f6
+6 to Maximum Stamina
Fire Resist +14%
77% Extra Gold from Monsters
23% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+5 to Light Radius
5% Bonus to Attack Rating

Garnet Ring of Accuracy
Required Level: 31
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 81
Fingerprint: 0x69793d6
+9 to Dexterity
Fire Resist +30%

Plated Belt of the Whale
Defense: 11
Durability: 24 of 24
Required Strength: 60
Required Level: 37
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 78
Fingerprint: 0xff52bff9
+97 to Life

And the mercenary equipment:

Code:
Malice
Cryptic Axe
'IthElEth'
Two-Hand Damage: 43 to 208
Durability: 41 of 65
Required Dexterity: 103
Required Strength: 165
Required Level: 59
Polearm Class - Slow Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 83
Fingerprint: 0x4bd0ca43
+33% Enhanced Damage
+50 to Attack Rating
+9 to Maximum Damage
Drain Life -5
+0 to Light Radius
-25% Target Defense
Prevent Monster Heal
-100 to Monster Defense Per Hit
100% Chance of Open Wounds
Socketed (3: 3 used)

Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest
Death Mask
'Ort'
Defense: 104
Durability: 20 of 20
Required Strength: 55
Required Level: 66
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 60
Fingerprint: 0x8f0fad56
+60 to Life
+30 to Mana
+45 Defense
Fire Resist +15%
Lightning Resist +45%
Cold Resist +15%
Poison Resist +15%
10% Life stolen per hit
10% Mana stolen per hit
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Soul Wrap
Mesh Armor
Defense: 252
Durability: 35 of 45
Required Strength: 92
Required Level: 25
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 82
Fingerprint: 0xa2990f79
+18% Enhanced Defense
Magic Damage Reduced by 2
Fire Resist +23%
Cold Resist +26%
Attacker Takes Damage of 6
17% Faster Hit Recovery

Bonuses from charms:
189 life, 71 mana, 20 LR, 43 CR, 5 PR, 13 FR, 3 sources of cold dmg

Overall she was a blast to play, but definitely underpowered. Due to being untwinkled the main concern was the dismal amount of non-cold damage she inflicted, so cold immunes in Hell gave her constant headaches. As a completely opposite to Bob, she favored the indoor and cramped areas that forces monsters to bunch up and therefore one arrow would freeze huge packs.

In the beginning only Atropos was a bit overpowered, cold enhanced arrows simply made short work of any monster/boss she encountered. Then Andariel dropped a Dimoak's Hew and suddenly Emilio was even more overpowered, so much so that Atropos wasn't able to add much to any battle before Emilio finished everyone off. As a result until Freezing Arrow was available Atropos was a cheerleader.

As expected cold immunes were terrible, starting in Act V Normal. The terrain had to be used constantly to bottleneck the monster packs so Emilio and the valkyrie could deal with them 2-3 at a time. More than that and Emilio would be in serious need of a doctor...or mortician. This trend continued into Hell until Emilio could get a better weapon. My rune finding was terrible, as I wanted an Insight but never found a Sol nor enough Amns to cube one. So we went with a Malice instead for the OW and increased damage.

For the most part things were safe, but that may have been due to me being extra careful than anything else. Decoy was used liberally as both a scout and a, gasp, decoy to split monster group's attention. Probably cast is a couple thousand times in Hell alone. Also picked up the trick of running away slightly from battle, just enough to get Emilio to follow but not the valkyrie. Allowed me to position him so he wasn't the main focus of attention for the monsters, since he was quite fragile.

There were a few scary moments. City of the Damned contained Stygian Hags, which are cold immune and so are their spawn. They multiplied faster than my crew could kill them. So I took to sprinting through the level looking for the WP. Really not a good idea as I did get cornered at one point, but managed to work my way out. Second troublesome spot was the Ancients, as I just couldn't split them up for the longest time. As a result I almost ran out of gold resurrecting Emilio. Finally I equipped some FRW and that allowed the Ancients to be dealt with one at a time.

Baal himself was an epic battle worth of song, dance and the consumption of much recreational beverages. Atropos had more NDEs than the rest of the Acts put together. Appendages littered the area, Baal was cloned more often than not and Emilio took a dirt nap early (slacker!). But eventually Atropos whittled down Baal's life to nothing after at least 30 trips back to town to restock and heal.

If you'd like to review her progress I posted about it in the tournament thread. And yes, I do spam. 👅

Posts: 610, 627, 632, 663, 671, 694, 697, 723, 739, 863, 865, 870, 872, 887, 888, 893, 898, 902, 908, 911, 915, 929, 936, 938, 940, 942, 947, 955
 
Originally posted by nermind on Aug 10, 2009:

Guardian amaXII - lvl 99 1.07 bowazon.

Couple of words that have nothing to do with stats.

Hello reader, let me introduce you to the reson why I`m having very little sleep lately 👋

Actually the title says it all - I`ve reached one of the final goals I had left in Diablo II:LoD v1.07 - levelled a HC character to 99.

When I just started this ancient version of LoD all I heared about leveling was that it is incredibly slow, but reaching the 80s and 90s I understood that its not really the case - yes the leveling is slower on low levels (mostly because of the lack of /p command) but at higher levels it gets faster compared to 1.1x, all you need is a bit of RAM to support multiple instances of Diablo.

Why would one bother doing that anyway? I had more than one reason:):
I can`t recall anything about new 99ers (HC or SC) lately and haven`t heared about one in 1.07 at all. And understanding that I wont be able to attempt lvl 99 in 1.12 (no matter how impossible it would be in HC) anytime soon (timetravelling has already taken much more time than planned and isn`t nearly finished), I would at least have something to brag about until then :crazyeyes:
And (surprise!) theres even something useful (at least in theory) behind this - getting the highest possible ilvl for my crafts and cubed jewelery in 1.07.

I guess it belongs here as well: her (ugly?) name is just another attempt of mine to organize my (quite many) 1.07 characters...

The numbers.
Heres what Atma says:


Rich (BB code):
Character name  : amaXII
Character type  : Hardcore Amazon
Character level : 99
Character exp   : 3520485254

Strength        : 115/131
Energy          : 15/15
Dexterity       : 97/103
Vitality        : 353/353
Stat Points Rem : 5
Skill Points Rem: 2

Life            : 1436/1462
Mana            : 177/218
Stamina         : 535

Skills(no +skills gear of any kind):

D/A/E:14/16/14
Critical Strike, Pierce, Multiple Shot:20

Quite simple - maxed everything that makes a killer out of a MS zon and then dumped rest into D/A/E as I had heared very little good about 1.07 Valk.

What she is wearing:

Rich (BB code):
1: Wraith Whorl
Ring
Required Level: 35
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x5bf62458
Fire Resist +17%
Cold Resist +21%
Adds 2-7 poison damage over 3 seconds
8% Life stolen per hit

2: M'avina's Tenet
Sharkskin Belt
Defense: 81
Durability: 14 of 14
Required Strength: 20
Required Level: 45
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 75
Fingerprint: 0x48d2d145
+50 Defense
13% Mana stolen per hit
+5 to Light Radius
40% Faster Run/Walk

3: Guillaume's Face
Winged Helm
Defense: 217
Durability: 40 of 40
Required Strength: 115
Required Level: 34
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x3734c211
+15 to Strength
+120% Enhanced Defense
15% Increased Attack Speed
30% Faster Hit Recovery
35% Chance of Crushing Blow
15% Deadly Strike
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Jewel of Fervor
Required Level: 31
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 61
Fingerprint: 0x541057a5
15% Increased Attack Speed

4: Goblin Toe
Light Plated Boots
Defense: 25
Durability: 18 of 18
Required Strength: 50
Required Level: 22
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 90
Fingerprint: 0x869a0ab
+15 Defense
Damage Reduced by 1
Magic Damage Reduced by 1
-1 to Light Radius
25% Chance of Crushing Blow

5: The Cat's Eye
Amulet
Required Level: 50
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 78
Fingerprint: 0x4b23e0c6
+20 to Maximum Stamina
+75 Defense
+45 Defense vs. Missile
20% Increased Attack Speed
30% Faster Run/Walk

6: Rattlecage
Gothic Plate
Defense: 329
Durability: 55 of 55
Required Strength: 70
Required Level: 31
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 90
Fingerprint: 0x2c9e5193
+45 to Attack Rating
+200 Defense
15% Increased Attack Speed
Hit Causes Monster to Flee 49%
25% Chance of Crushing Blow
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Jewel of Fervor
Required Level: 31
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 90
Fingerprint: 0x1ac8ddd8
15% Increased Attack Speed

7: Raven Frost
Ring
Required Level: 45
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 78
Fingerprint: 0x4dae48c6
Cold Resist +35%
Adds 15-25 cold damage
Cannot Be Frozen
4% Chance to cast Level 5 Frost Nova when struck

8: Storm Hand
Vampirebone Gloves
Defense: 64
Durability: 13 of 14
Required Strength: 50
Required Level: 61
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 63
Fingerprint: 0x3d69cf7f
+3 to Dexterity
+23 to Life
Adds 1-2 fire damage
3% Life stolen per hit
20% Increased Attack Speed
11% Chance of Crushing Blow

9: Buckler yes she is indeed wearing it - too lazy to take it off
Defense: 4
Chance to Block:  25%
Durability: 12 of 12
Required Strength: 12
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 1
Fingerprint: 0x1641d305

10: Prefix 869 Rune Bow of Storms
'ShaeShaeEthNef'
Two-Hand Damage: 54 to 136
Required Dexterity: 103
Required Strength: 73
Required Level: 29
Bow Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 76
Fingerprint: 0x3a3a6786
+290% Enhanced Damage
Adds 2-43 lightning damage
Knockback
40% Increased Attack Speed
-25% Target Defense
Socketed (4: 4 used)

Shae Rune
Inserted into a Rune Bow

20% Increased Attack Speed

Required Level: 29
Item Version: Expansion

Shae Rune
Inserted into a Rune Bow

20% Increased Attack Speed

Required Level: 29
Item Version: Expansion

Eth Rune
Inserted into a Rune Bow

-25% Target Defense

Required Level: 15
Item Version: Expansion

Nef Rune
Inserted into a Rune Bow

Knockback

Required Level: 13
Item Version: Expansion

Charms that left no free space in her inventory:

Code:
Prefix 1063 Small Charm of Sustenance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 17
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 90
Fingerprint: 0x57b92288
+11 to Life
Lightning Resist +10%

Prefix 1024 Small Charm of Dexterity
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 16
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x5d66407d
+2 to Dexterity
Cold Resist +12%

Prefix 1020 Large Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x204a5787
Cold Resist +24%

Prefix 1023 Small Charm of Sustenance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 17
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0xa88f51f
+14 to Life
Cold Resist +9%

Prefix 1057 Large Charm of Inertia
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 18
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 65
Fingerprint: 0x60ba9cab
Lightning Resist +15%
5% Faster Run/Walk

Prefix 1044 Small Charm of Vita
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 39
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x58913c4a
+16 to Life
Fire Resist +12%

Prefix 997 Small Charm of Sustenance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 17
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 90
Fingerprint: 0x1e76cf50
+11 to Life
All Resistances +6

Prefix 1059 Large Charm of Vita
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 50
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 90
Fingerprint: 0x1bff2618
+26 to Life
Lightning Resist +22%

Prefix 1059 Large Charm of Quality
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 30
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 90
Fingerprint: 0x1111f89e
+9 to Maximum Damage
Lightning Resist +21%

Prefix 1040 Large Charm of Sustenance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 34
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x48f9ae70
+21 to Life
Fire Resist +24%

Prefix 1040 Large Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 78
Fingerprint: 0x225a6bf2
Fire Resist +24%

Prefix 1063 Small Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x6b6afcbc
Lightning Resist +12%

Prefix 1063 Small Charm of Dexterity
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 5
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 73
Fingerprint: 0x3aa233b0
+1 to Dexterity
Lightning Resist +11%

Prefix 1063 Small Charm of Craftmanship
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 15
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x6b7ce0e4
+2 to Maximum Damage
Lightning Resist +12%

Prefix 1063 Small Charm of Life
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 14
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 58
Fingerprint: 0x1c3216b1
+9 to Life
Lightning Resist +11%

Prefix 1040 Large Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 90
Fingerprint: 0x3b01be6a
Fire Resist +21%

Prefix 1059 Large Charm of Greed
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 5
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 61
Fingerprint: 0x5e62cfcb
Lightning Resist +22%
10% Extra Gold from Monsters

Prefix 997 Small Charm of Strength
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 5
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 90
Fingerprint: 0x7e28adc3
+1 to Strength
All Resistances +5

Prefix 1036 Grand Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x7f875381
Fire Resist +36%

Prefix 967 Grand Charm of Sustenance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 37
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x3013d89e
+26 to Life
+56 to Mana

The Mercenary (actV):

Rich (BB code):
1: Coronet of Life Everlasting
'Sol'
Defense: 31
Durability: 30 of 30
Required Level: 37
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 90
Fingerprint: 0x78aca79
Damage Reduced by 31
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Sol Rune
Inserted into a Coronet

Damage Reduced by 7

Required Level: 27
Item Version: Expansion

2: Eagle Cloak
Great Hauberk
'SolSolSol'
Defense: 1360
Durability: 50 of 50
Required Strength: 118
Required Level: 67
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 61
Fingerprint: 0x4a2164e4
+171% Enhanced Defense
Damage Reduced by 41
Magic Damage Reduced by 4
Lightning Resist +26%
Poison Resist +30%
Half Freeze Duration
Socketed (3: 3 used)

Sol Rune
Inserted into a Great Hauberk

Damage Reduced by 7

Required Level: 27
Item Version: Expansion

Sol Rune
Inserted into a Great Hauberk

Damage Reduced by 7

Required Level: 27
Item Version: Expansion

Sol Rune
Inserted into a Great Hauberk

Damage Reduced by 7

Required Level: 27
Item Version: Expansion

3: Rune Razor
Colossus Sword
One-Hand Damage: 31 to 113
Two-Hand Damage: 81 to 173
Durability: 29 of 50
Required Dexterity: 73
Required Strength: 136
Required Level: 72
Sword Class - Slow Attack Speed
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 61
Fingerprint: 0x670fc622
+77% Enhanced Damage
Damage Reduced by 15
Magic Damage Reduced by 6
9% Mana stolen per hit
Requirements -20%
10% Chance to cast Level 4 Fire Bolt on attack

This is what the charcter screen looks like after she killed Cow King for the last time. Yes, the damage is THAT low.

Edit: adding a couple of screenshots:
Character selection screen as poops wanted to see it and to give you all a laugh at character names:)
And specially for Nagi screeny with MS damage which is even lower :p

So how she managed to kill /p8 cows with THAT damage? And what is all that weird gear for?

I highlighted the modifiers that made me choose items for her.

You can see lots of something you would never bother getting on your 1.1x bowazon - Crushing Blow! Some might have heared that in earlier versions ranged weapons didn`t have a CB penalty, but whats even more important - in 1.07 CB also ignores Physical Resistance AND scales up with players. Winner? Definitely! I don`t regret getting the smallest part of those 96%. After I got to know this and made a couple of "test drives" it was obvious that she needed some source of PMH to finish off cows after quick slivering with CB and as there are no elemental damage charms, i picked a ring that had some psn damage and most useful other modes.

You also want FRW and a lot (as the damage is low) of mana steal. And ofcourse as high attack speed as possible for the fastest delivering of CB (8 frame attack in this case - can`t see going any higher as the next break-point is faaaar away). CNB is always useful for non-casters.

All this made planning quite short as most of the slots had obvious top-choices. I started with a bit worse gear than this, but upgarded as I got some better items (mostly from running Andy with my sorc) - Raven Frost, Cats Eye and I was even lucky enough to craft CB gloves with 20% IAS which was exactly what I needed to reach the break-point.

Theres only one item I`m not happy with - the bow. I have been quite unlucky with bow shoping and that is the highest damage bow I`ve got with a decent att speed allowing me to reach 8 frames.

As you can see theres almost no resists of any kind on the gear - this made planning even shorter as I knew what I had to get from charms. Actually this is the first 1.07 character who uses so many of them - I`m usually playing with empty inventory to make sure I don`t lose too many of hard-to-get items if I get deeds, but this time it wasn`t an option. Must be happy shes still alive :)

Socketing of the bow - I think Shaels are obvious, Eth is there to use a 1.07 bug which sets monster defence to "-25%" instead of "75%" so no AR worries and Nef is there because knockback tends to work very well with MS unlike in later patches. And although Rattlecage is GREAT (really, I was shooting in the back of cows most of the time), I needed some safety against uniques/champs who weren`t fleeing.

Mercenary was even easier - just got items with the highest PDR ignoring most of the other stats. Having maxed LR for him was helpful though.
ActV mercenaries are the only ones that can actually survive cows in 1.07 as leach doesn`t work at all. I saw the awesome potential of their health regeneration for the first time - its really insane! I guess its something about teleport that keeps them from regening that fast when I play sorcs but with the zon merc could actually regenerate full health in a couple of seconds. At higher levels he stopped dieing even when crowded.

So what you do with a character geared like that?

Did I mention running cows? Oh, yes, hundred times...Yes thats really what it was about for her - she started out as a lvl 52 rushed character with completed quests (I love cheeze:p) and spent most of her life listening to the "Moo,Moo,Moo..." The most annoying thing is that I had to rejoin with 8 characters from different instances for each run - that alone makes 1.09 so much better for fast leveling into high 90s. It took a few hundred runs to get to 99 (I wasn`t counting) - and even at level 98 i was getting 7~9 millions of experience for each run. 98-99 took 38 runs.

After I got the hang of it running went very smoothly, biggest danger being too much of self-confidence - I felt I often forgot I`m not playing SC, but luck was on my zon`s side and I can recall only a couple of NDEs caused by Might enchanted (Ouuuuch....) unique packs. Speaking of luck - maybe its something special about cow level but I didn`t encounter a single MSLE unique over hundreds of runs. Good for her.

Finds.
Finds? In 1.07? You must be joking!
Given how low are the drops in 1.07 and that it doesn`t even scale up with players I wasn`t expecting much other than some crafting ingredients.
And I was right for the most part - no runes higher than a couple of Shaels, Dols and alike, (obviously) no decent set/unique items as well, but i can recall getting a couple pretty good charms - a 3min/6max SC and 6@/11life SC come to mind. Not much else to say sadly. I hope she will make up for it with some crafts in the future :)

What else do they usually write about? Future plans!

1)Getting some good sleep! Thats what I need the most now, I`ve been even more obsessed with this game for a couple of weeks than I am usually, I feel like this can change for a short while:thumbsup:

2)I can definitely see some crafting/cubing spree coming as I`ve been saving up ingredients since I could see the perfect character for that coming.

3)Some more rack&chest running. Yes, again. Although I`ve got most of the useful items I want to rack there are still a couple I want to get.

4)The last build I`ve got left to make in 1.07 - a Baal-runner barbarian with 556% mf. I think I`ve got the gear already, but I put this in the last place as its mostly about leveling a character and thats what I want to do least right now:)

Thanks for reading, boys and girls,
hopefully you found at least a little interesting piece in this post,

-nermind
 
Originally posted by Nightfish on Apr 9, 2006:

Guardian #20 or deeds? - Now with more unspent skillpoints than a Necro!

Well, weekend over, time for another one. Actually #20 was supposed to be a lightning trapper but I decided she was boring and cookie cutter so I went for a pure strafezon instead. My first go at a strafer did not turn out so well. Used LF for backup and in the end ended up using only LF and maybe strafe for LIs. Well, this time it went completely different... Allow me to present with as much pride as one can present a D2 char: Viridia, the lvl 81 Strafezon that actually deserves that name:

Stats & Inventory:

http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/8444/viridiastatsinventory8vh.jpg

Damage is with might and enchant.

Skills:

20 Strafe
20 Penetrate
14 Pierce

1 all prerequisties

and that's it. No Valk. No Decoy. No D/A/E. No Inner Sight. No Slow Missiles. No nothing. Just strafe, Penetrate and Pierce.

Unspent Points: 33

I think that's some kind of record.

Items

Helm: Perf Ruby Blackhorn's Face
Armour: Perf Ruby Crow Caw
Belt: Blood Craft: 2% LL, 8% OW, 27%LR, 5% FR, 20 Life, 17% FHR.
Boots: Gore Rider
Gloves: Cleglaw's Set
Ring 1: Ravenfrost
Ring 2: Rare from Ormus: 8% LL, 6% ML, +13Str, 3% Res all, 19% CRes
Ammy: Cat's Eye

Weapon: 2 x 25% ED Jewel Up'd Witchwild String (220% ED final)

Switch: Demon Limb (Enchant)

So, what's the point of all this? Basically my plan was to keep alive using three things:

1) Knockback. Okay, this is obvious. Strafe attacks fast and throws stuff back. Simple deal.
Pro: Works like a charm for regular "questing"
Con: Does not work against act bosses and ancients.

2) 67% FRW. I know, I know... How can you run in HC? I get that all the time. But tbh, running owns hard. Nothing like cheesing it when a mob of angry somethings chases you.
Pro: Makes me faster than them.
Con: Makes me faster than my merc, which results in me having no merc, and no aura most of the time

3) Slow target by 45% (Cleglaw + Blackhorn). Sweet. This is probably the best thing ever.
Pro: Makes them slow. This is win vs act bosses.
Con: Less effective vs Extra Fast monsters

So, the basic idea was to just run a bit and start strafing. Usually everything just died before it even got close to me. Sweet. Act bosses are just owned by this. Duriel never even hit me on nightmare or hell difficulty.

Right, this covers how I planned to stay alive, how did I plan to kill? Well, WWS at 220% ED does okay damage. Nothing great but it's ok. With close 100% Deadly Strike this is doubled which is enough for good killspeed in hell. With amp damage this is quadrupled which makes stuff just melt away. Another excellent addition to the arsenal is open wounds. This owns a lot more than it's given credit. Just a few items providing the mod and stuff doesn't heal anymore and the irresistable damage kills all unbreakable PIs for me. Sweet. Strafe is also a lot better than it looks on the stat screen. If you know how where to stand you can attack a lot of things at the same time. Pierce & 3 FPA are pretty nice.

The original plan was to give the merc a crescent moon and have him whittle down things with static but that didn't happen as the merc is a complete and utter idiot. Go to hell merc. And die. Horribly. Moron. -.-


Merc

Might, I think. To be quite honest I went through complete areas without even *seeing* him. It seems in 1.11 he can get stuck and doesn't portal after you at all sometimes. I hate him. He sucks. Go to hell mercenary. Go to hell and die.

The Why and the How:

As usual, I want to skip normal and nightmare in my narrative, with one exception: I had planned to go close to base vit with this char until in act 3 nightmare I discovered that stygian dolls do a ****load of damage when they pop. And, that my merc is never around, *except* when he can kill a doll standing right next to me. Ouch. Ouch to the max. At that time I decided to go for 200 Vit instead, and we'll see whether or not that was a waste.

Why max strafe? Well, tbh I just maxed it cause I had the points. But it turns out strafe now fires a minimum amount of arrows even if there's only one target (forgot about that) and this rocks so much. Sure, there's next delay but that does not actually affect things. Fact is you'll be attacking real fast if you strafe and now strafe owns all other bow skills when it comes to taking out single enemies. And of course it is still awesome against crowds if you know where to stand. (in a line with the mob)

Why max penetrate? Well, strafe is no good if you can't hit. As I relied on strafe for crowd control I needed good AR. Same reason I got enchant from demon limb. Get's my AR up to a decent level without sacrificing much - neither from gear nor stat points.

Why 14 Pierce? Well, this was around 60% for a while until I realised I won't be needing anything else.

Why no Valk? Running in place and *whiff* bugs. Also because I seriously do not need a tank for this build.

Why no decoy? As above, I need no tank. And if I needed one, a copy of the zon would suck *** even with 200% life. The zon can take 2 hits before she drops, so the copy would take 4... I'd be recasting this so much I wouldn't get to strafe.

Why no other attack skills? Because strafe kills and hard. And I didn't want or need anything else.


The Battle through Hell:

Well, this was truly fun. After the disappointing hydra sorc she was a welcome change. Left normal at 40 and nightmare at 74 respectively (to wear the dual leech ring, otherwise I'd be in hell at 68).

Normal questing is relatively uneventful. Run a few paces, strafe, see if that hits something, if so, keep at it until it drops. If hits nothing advance. In battles Viridia tries to position herself on a line with the bulk of the enemy forces to maximise the potential strafe + pierce offers. And that's not too shabby.

The slow target mod is really awesome. Even without a merc she was in no danger at all. Strafe, fall back, strafe, fall back, strafe, gg no re. No problem with her FRW and the enemies being all "zomg!!! I R TEH SLOW!!! ME = TEH SWISS??!?!?".

I had a few close calls when I passed doors. Of course you should always expect 2 boss packs, one cursed, one extra strong, mighty or fanatic but when it actually happens you are surprised. Well, again FRW made for a clean exit.

What totally surprised me is how she eats bosses for breakfast. Even without swapping gear onto her merc. The slow mod totally screws them over and most of the times she didn't even get hit unless she deliberately tanked, i.e. diablo's fire / lightning hose.

After a fun trip through the world of diablo, complete with getting lost in act 3 and forgetting to bring the body part of the flayer dungeon... (moron!) she finally reached the arreat summit. Da da da daaaam. Dramatic pause.

I have to admit I was slightly worried for her. But, I thought this was a good chance for my merc to make himself useful. So, on he puts his guillaume's face, shaftstop and crescent moon and he's all ready to go. Viridia hits it and .... curse.... bam... merc dead. Okay, okay... that was a curse, nothing serious, just revive him and go again. Second try... she hits it... the merc drops. I was like... Okay, fine. Nobody needs you anyway. Go to hell. And die... Oh, you did... Well, good going. Moron.

So, there she is, my poor little strafezon with 3 ancients, one of them sporting the popular might aura, 2 of them FE, none PI. Well, my policy is, "if they're not cursed you can handle them". Damn policies. But seriously, again slow target by 45% owned the **** out of the the troublemakers. I could do the strafe, fall back, strafe, fall back and almost never get hit. 2 of the ancients went down like my merc (I hope he's still dead. Moron) which left me and the FE whirler. Only one of us would make it... Can I tank the FE explosion at full life or not? Click to find out:

http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/9278/viridiaouch7sx.jpg


Well, that's it for this one. No remarkable finds. Runes were fal and hel. Yay.












(she made it in the end, of course. Rest of the game was a cakewalk. Proves that you really don't need a tank as a bowzon)
 
Originally posted by Nightfish on May 15, 2006:

#28 FA-amazon

Well, here we go again. Another char made guardian. This time it's an amazon who was half fun. She's a freezing arrow / strafe hybrid using the complete amazon set and for lack of anything better to do with the spare points she has a valkyrie which I ended up regretting, but more on that later. Presenting:

M'avina -- lvl 81 amazon

Stats:
Str: 87 (132)
Dex: 97 (152)
Vit: 296 (311)
En: 15 (20)

Life: 1309
Mana: 409

Resitances:
75% all (FA, full set)
30% all (when strafing, Eaglehorn)

Damage Report:
Freezing Arrow: 2322-2522 @ 9 FPA
Strafe (with might) 370-1650 @ X/3 FPA

Skills:
Bow & Crossbow
Cold Arrow: 20
Freezing Arrow 20 (30)
Strafe: 20 (26)

Passive & Magic
Critical Strike: 1 (11)
Penetrate: 1 (11)
Pierce: 1 (11)
Dodge: 1 (11)
Avoid: 1 (11)
Evade: 1 (11)
Decoy: 2 (12)
Valkyrie: 18 (28)

Merc
Here we got a mighty one, using an eth insight cryptic axe, fortitude and a vamp gaze for questing, swapping helm and weapon for guillaume's and kelpie when we went up against bosses. He's basically dumb as a rock but his aura was really good for lazy fisheh.

Equipment
Well, as I said she used the complete M'avina set which is pretty good for a Fazon. Sockets are used as follows: Topazes in Helm & Armour, Shael in the Bow for the 89% IAS breakpoint. Other than that she's got WarTraveller boots, Mara's Ammy, a SoJ and a BKWB for rings and an Eaglehorn (Nef) on switch to strafe.

The complete set is actually pretty good, giving massive resitances, +20 Str and +30 Dex. Knowing this I could draw some points from there and put them in vit, so basically the set gave me 150 extra life. All things considered I also got over 200% MF which is good enough for me.

She didn't really need charms to boost her resistances like a lot of my other chars do so her's accounted for:
+126 Life
+144 Mana
+ 38 Res all
+ 5 seconds cold duration

Musings:
Well, now for the random ranting part. First of all, this was a very fun char to play. Freezing arrow is really a cool skill and at 9 FPA it's just fun to watch. I like the effects, really nice. And of course it works pretty well vs everything not cold immune. Which is already the one big problem this maiden has. Boy does she ever suck vs cold immunes...

A lot of these are undead so they're resistant to physical damage which isn't helping strafe's puny damage. And of course strafe sucks major *** with a valk. I really only skilled her because I had nothing else to do with my points and I wanted to see again if I was too harsh in my judgement the last time. I wasn't. Go to hell dodge / evade / avoid. I want a freaking dollar for every time she's missed a whole cycle just because some dumbass flayer shot a blow dart at her which would have done a whooping 1 damage but she chose to evade it and miss all her 10 shots as a tradeoff. Great work biatch... I should have maxed guided arrow instead or something.

So yeah, basically she did really well with the full set and freezing arrow. Eaglehorn was a good choice for strafing as her AR is something like 2k or so. Gotta be a chance to hit of about 7.3% or so. Downside is that she loses 50% res all when strafing which was nearly her undoing when something left an unexpected frost nova on death. Other than that it was pretty smooth sailing. I gotta say stygian dolls do too much damage, though. 400-450 life on death is too much. Would be okay if it was fire and could be easily resisted but I think it's physical and there's only a handful of items giving that resistance. Carp.

A quick word on the ancients, albeit they don't really warrant it this time. I had to reroll them about 10 times until I got a spawn without curse (my policy is to reroll when they are cursed and fight when they're not). One was FE the rest were easy. Like extra strong, extra fast and magic resistant, spectral hit. Took down the FE bastard whirler first with guided arrow and very little help from the moron. The whirler was content to square off with the valk (that was basically her only redeeming moment, btw. Not that it was needed but w/e) but the leaper kept straight at my zon relentlessly. I got bored running away after a bit and just tanked him while plinking away with GAs. And that was that.

The 200% MF really paid off, btw. In hell she found a Guardian Angel, Fleshripper and even a grailer for me: my first HC Doombringer (crappy 198% ED though). The doombringer was technically not a questing find as I did 3 tunnel runs when I wasn't in the mood for the durance of hate yet. Hellforges were Ko and Mal. Yay. This isn't helping... I need 3 guls, not a mal. At this rate I'll have my fortitude by the time this project is done... Rats.

Well, that's basically a wrap for her. She'll be retiring to the ancient tunnels. She's definetly not in shape for the WS K with strafe as backup. I am seriously considering changing my upcoming WS K zon's backup skill from strafe to FA, though. 20 FA, 20 CA, 20 CS, 20 LF. Yes, I think I'll do that. Much easier to get the gear right when all you need is skills, too.

Well, see ya next time. 21 to go. Also: 6000 posts! Woot! Gib medal?
 
Originally posted by Nightfish on Feb 20, 2007:

Guardians #36 (MS/Immo Arrow Zon) & #37 (DC Assassin)

Well, so much for taking it slower with the next char. I should have known it wouldn't work this way with any semi-interesting build, and this one was quite fun indeed. Now I'm done and the forums are down. Rats. Oh well, might as well type it out now and post it later. (Later being now. Incidentally, my post count is down to 2500 from over 6000 but don't expect me to post those 3500 missing bits of wisdom again -.-) So,without further ado, presenting:

Thyiad -- lvl 79 Amazon (though she doesn't look a day over 29)

~Tribute to Thyiad for the Webpage she put up with all my Guardians and Stuff~

Stats:

Str: 110
Dex: 190
Vit: 170
En: ...

Life: 909
Mana: 207

Resistances: 75/50/80/75

Used Skills
Magic Arrow: 1
Multishot 10
Immolation Arrow 20 (26)

Critical Strike: 11
Penetrate: 20
Pierce: 7

Damage & Stuff
Multishot: 500-1000 (11 Arrows, 8 FPA)
Magic Arrow: 650-1350
Attack Rating with Enchant: 8650

Immolation Arrow: ~1600

Gear
Switch 1: Upgraded Riphook (Shael) 66-129 Damage
Switch 2: Melody GMB, +6 Bow & Xbow Skills
Laying of Hands
Fortitude Archon Plate
Blackhorn's Face (9% LR, 15% IAS Jewel)
Gore Rider
Ravenfrost
Rare Ring (8% LL, 6% ML, 3%Res all, 19% CR, +13 Str)
Atma's Scarab
Razortail

Charms: Mostly resistance charms and one lone +130 AR 30 Life charm.

In the cube: Demon Limb, used for the Enchant charges.

Might Mercenary
Insight Cryptic Axe (the aura actually served absolutely no purpose on this build, I was just too lazy to look for a real weapon) Fortitude Boneweave and a Vamp Gaze for questing, Guillaume's Face for Act Bosses.

Noteable Finds:
Ko Rune (Nightmare Forge)
Um Rune (Hell Forge)
Io Rune (Basket)

Gut Siphon (Random Flayer, Act 3)
Jade Talon (Duriel)
The Reaper's Toll (Mephisto)
Diddly Squat (Hell Baal)

Jewel of Envy

Random Ramblings
Whoopdedoo, another home run. And actually a half decent build. Now let's look at skillz and itamz:

Most notable might be the absence of a Valkyrie, Decoy and any of the dodging skills. Let me just say right here that I never once even considered regretting not thinking about putting points in those skills for a heartbeat. That's how little I need them. So, now let's look at the skills I did actually use.

Multishot is pretty decent as long as there's plenty of targets. Overall I like it less than strafe since there are few occasions where there are enough monsters around for MS to actually be better. Penetrate was maxed so she actually has half a shot at hitting something. This was really, really necessary. Even with high dex and a good amount of AR from her gear and enchant her AR is still pretty crappy. Pierce is pretty obvious. A must have for the bow skills in general. Comes close to 100% with razortail. Critical Strike is my dump for any additional points I might gain from here on. Brought it up to close to 50% pretty early, of course. Nice skill to have.

Her gear is set up so as to support multi shot as best as possible. Riphook and Blackhorns give her 50% slow which is just godlike with multishot. Everything moves at a crawl. #1 Reason why there's no need for any of the passive & magic skills. Aside from that she hits an 8 FPA regular attack which is pretty fast. Fortitude and Might bring damage to reasonable levels. Maybe not damage per shot, but she attacks pretty fast and with critical and amp damage from Atma's she kills reasonably fast. The main reason I set her up like this was that I wanted to hit 8 FPA and still have some mana leech. That meant that this time I would not be able to use the Angelic Jewelry because I was bent on using Riphook for open wounds and slow. If I had a windforce I might have used that. But I don't so I didn't.

Now, last and definetly least: Immolation Arrow. Immolation-Arrow..
IMMO-"I'M-FREAKING-WEAKER-THAN-LVL-10-FIREBALL-BUT-I-GOT-A-CASTING-TIMER-OLOLOL-NUB-LATION-ARROW". Okay, seriously. What is up with that timer? Did this skill really need a nerf? Jeez, just put a timer on Firebolt while you're at it. Oh, and increase blessed hammer and blizzard damage by 200%. For crying out loud people... But it's not quite as bad as it might seem. Immolation Arrow is quite similar to FoH from my last build. Underpowered skill with a timer. Still, this time I used it only for PIs and some Bosses so it was all good. Yes, immolation arrow actually kills stuff. Amazing. Now I've seen it all.


Now, getting this gal through the game was actually quite easy. Unlike my last 2 guardians, this one had her share of NDEs, though. First one came in Act 3 Hell. A bunch of extra fast, cursed, mighty flayers swarmed her and she barely got out, chugging Purples at a rate of 3 per second. Close call #1. There were a few more dangerous situations in the more narrow and dark areas but fast run speed usually saw her through just fine. Ancients were pretty easy. Multi shot to slow them all down, a lot of running and turning and eventually they go down. A bit of a scare came when the extra strong whirler killed my merc in one pass. Stop dying you coward! Anyway, 50% slow was too much for him and he went down to the riphook, just like the other two old people. "Get off our lawn!" my rear end... Her final (not literal) NDE was in the Throne of Destruction. I though I remembered that Patch 11 was supposed to fix FE and CE things for SP so I killed one single Styigan Doll critter that had approached to melee range. I was at full life so I thought nothing of it. One blink of an eye later Thyiad had lost 812 HP and was down to 97. Scary stuff.

So, what's in store for her now? Well, quite frankly this build is inferior in terms of MF capability. Immo Arrow, while perfectly fine for a single pass, just doesn't cut it for that purpose. Multishot is equally bad, imo, as usually there are not enough enemies around to make it truly worthwhile. I prefer both my Strafe / LF and especially my FA/LF/CS zon for MFing. But that's okay, not every build needs to be forever.

Now, what char will be next? Quite frankly, I haven't decided yet. It won't be an amazon, that's for sure as this was the last of these. That's the second class I finished getting a septuple in (sorcs were the first). I've got a lot of chars sitting in late normal / early nightmare, so there's much to chose from.

36 down, 13 to go. The end is in sight.



Sunday, 2/18/2007

And the Guardian train keeps on running. Here we go for #37, and this one was quite fun to play. Another 12 and I'm finally out of stuff to do. So, feast your eyes on:

Annah -- lvl 79 Assassin (it's been a while since I had a guardian of 80+)

Stats:

Str: 105
Dex: 105
Vit: 255
En: ...

Life: 1146
Mana: >1

Resistances: 75/68/80/75

Used Skills
Dragon Claw: 20

Burst of Speed 1 (6)
Weapon Block: 4 (5)
Cloak of Shadows 1 (2)
Venom 20 (25)

Lightning Sentry: 20
Death Sentry: 17

Damage & Stuff
Dragon Claw: 1500-2900 / 2400-3400 @ 5 FPA
Attack Rating with Enchant: 12000/10000

Lightning Sentry: 1-1500

Gear
Switch 1: Chaos Suwayyah / Firelizard's Talons (Perfect Amethyst)
Switch 2: Bartuc's / Bartuc's
Laying of Hands
Fortitude Archon Plate
Guillaume's Face (Perfect Diamond)
Gore Rider
Ravenfrost
Rare Ring (8% LL, 6% ML, 3%Res all, 19% CR, +13 Str)
Highlord's Wrath
String of Ears (15/7)

Charms: Mostly resistance charms

In the cube: Demon Limb, as always, used for the Enchant charges.

Might Mercenary
Eth Crescent Moon Thresher, Fortitude Boneweave and a Vamp Gaze.

Noteable Finds:
Nature's Peace (Chest in Durance 1)
Jewel of Envy
Wizard Spike (Baal)

Emerald Jewel of Prosperity
Required Level: 19
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x7a8d9d6d
16% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Random Ramblings
Whoo-hee! Finally something fun. Nice build, good stuff. I just love assassins, they're almost never boring. Traps got her through normal and nightmare. Well, mostly my envy gear and ravenclaw got her through normal and traps got her through nightmare. In Hell I used only her signature skills: Dragon Claw, Venom, Burst of Speed and restricted use of Lightning Sentry to PIs and Iron Maiden (not that it would have done any good to play her as a trapper with a whooping +1 to all skills) and Death Sentry only for huge mobs.

If you took a look at her gear you might have noticed that I put a lot of emphasis on AR. My philosophy is kinda like in that dumbass car comercial "power is nothing without control". Jeez, what have times come to when you find deep thinking philosophy in comercials. Anyways, every percent off my chance to hit is one percent of my displayed damage. So, if I do 2000 damage per hit but only have a 50% chance to hit that's only an average of 1000 damage per attack. Thus, the diamond in my helm and the amethyst in the weapon.

Besides that, I don't really need much. Of course I use the good stuff I have since you can bet your rear end that I didn't save up two years worth of runes to go through the game using duriel's shell and cracked katars. The claws were chosen because they offer two things: Good damage, both physical and non-physical and decent speed. So she's got 200-500 magic, 200-500 fire and about 460 poison (venom) in addition to her good physical damage. Makes for a very well rounded offense. Nothing is immune to her charms, if you will. Besides the obvious good news of "I can kill everything" this also means that she can always get open wounds to proc which is irresitable damage and invariably kills everything if you can just do 1 point of damage to it. Although in the cast of some PI stoneskin magic resistant high HP boss it took 3 minutes.

The rest of her gear was mostly chosing for a balance of Leech, Deadly Strike (60% !) and crusing blow (50%). LoH gives a great damage boost vs demons. 50% more than Fortitude gives vs everything. The high DS is also one of the reasons why I did not put points in claw mastery.

As always, I skip a shadow since I don't find shadows useful. They just don't suit my aggressive playstyle. Also they are dumb and smell funny. Cloak of Shadows is really all the crowd control I could ever ask for. I used it to initiate fights against mobs of 10 or more enemies or to shut up archers.
But enough of what I didn't use. On to what I did use. Weapon Block is pretty much a no brainer. Bumped it up to about 40 percent which is good enough.
Burst of Speed is definetly better than fade. I can't pass up free move speed, I just can't do it. Even if it didn't do wonders for my offense I would have used BoS over Fade. I hate being slow. Being slow is for rocks and trees. And maybe swiss people.
The traps were a nice addition since she needed something to deal with PIs (I thought, but was wrong here. The claws plus venom are better) and Iron Maiden (this was correct, she definetly does not want to find out how much it hurts to have a few hundred percent of her damage returned.). They got the job done and DS surely helped with some of the larger mobs.
Dragon Claw was a pleasant surprise. One of my first matriarchs (yes, I used to play SC) used this skill as a finisher but she didn't do a fraction of this gal's damage. Besides the obvious joy of having a 5 frame attack, this skill caters to my need of having good AR. I like being able to reliably hit stuff. Another reason why I didn't use claw mastery, DC gave enough AR.

So, some closing thoughts... Hm, she does pretty well in every are of the game. Only real problem is the Chaos Sanctuary and the WS K levels where Iron Maiden is present. Other than that she kills stuff pretty good. Single high HP enemies go down real fast with CB and her good base damage. Smaller enemies also die fast since she attacks really fast. The usually oh so scary ancients also didn't give her much trouble. None spawned with damage enhancing mods so she just took them down. Amazing how fast a 5 frame attack and 50% CB annihilates three old people. "Get off our snow" "Noes!" "Huuaaa-arrrgh". Good game, no rematch.

Well, that's a wrap for this one. Feel free to post any questions or comments you might have. Good night, and remember:

You read it, you can't unread it!

(unless you have a sixpack of beer and a funnel, maybe...)
 
Originally posted by Online on Jan 4, 2007:

Guardian Spark, the magezon (4/7)

(Ok, im angry. My computer restarted when i was about to finish this thread. No way im writing all that again. Short version will do i guess)

First of all, i've comverted to v1.11 RWM/RRM just to be able MP with few friends. Im not going to use runewords provided by RWM because i view them as overpowered. Also, i play untwinked, single-pass, no S&E to avoid death.

So, here are the stats
Level - 81
Strength - 65
Dexterity - 70
Vitality - 310
Energy - 50

Skills
Immolation arrow - 20 (~970 fire damage on hit, ~150 per second after that)
Freezing arrow - 20 (~670)
Valkyrie - 20
Exploding arrow - 10
Pierce - 2
Decoy - 3
Cold arrow - 6

This build has been very fun to play. Sometimes hard, sometimes easy but always fun. I highly reccomend this build to everyone
Playing - normal was playing on /players 8. Early levels involved lots of watching my merc killing things. Duriel was easily defeated by mer... errr, me.
By the time i reached baal i already had maxed IA and started putting points into valk.

Nightmare - Spark started nightmare at level 45-47 with quite decent resists. I've been collecting cold damage charms so FA, while not dealing any noticeable damage, still had good freezing duration. Lum rune dropped in catacombs which i used to make myself a nice "smoke" armor. Andariel dropped eth frostburns. From that point, my play could've been judged by lost durability points 👅

In act 2 i hired might merc. I already had great crowd control with valk, FA, decoy and slow missiles. On the other hand actual killing speed was slow so i wanted to improve it. Durability lost in act 2 - 1

Durability lost in act 3 - 0 Somewhere here i maxed valk and started putting points into FA

Durability lost in act 4 - 0 Hellforge netted me UM rune. I used it to make my merc a very nice "Duress" armor. Yay

Durability lost in act 5 - 5 (!) Outdoor areas had many archers. I just couldn't dodge all missiles.

Hell - Spark entered hell at low level of 70 and 7 durability remaining. FA duration was about 2.5 seconds here, resists - 59/60/75/-4. My merc needed a weapon upgrade seriously. Anyway, things went smoothly.
Durability lost in act 1 - 0

Act two was easy save for some boss packs. I also found 5 socket cryptic axe somewhere. I wanted to make "honor" but i lacked Sol rune :sad2:
Durability lost in act 2 - 0

Act three, the favorite of mine. There were lots of blowdarts and they hit me often. Met gloams, they weren't dangerous save for conviction enchanted one. I took extra care in flayer dungeon, there are many boss packs here and its easy to get swarmed. In ruined temple was a stair trap. Decoy shinned there, distracting monsters from me. Without it i'd be in trouble.
Travincial had vampires. Lots of them. Meteors hurt a lot and vamps cant be frozen. Also, they run all over the place. For my trouble i was rewarded with Sol rune which was used to make "Honor" cryptic axe. Merc's damage skyrocketed. Durance of hate was big, i spent a bit more than two hours till i found level 3. Brem was Conviction + FELE + teleport. After him meph seemed like park-walk. Durability lost in act 3 - 1

Act four. Wasn't hard till i met gloams. There were many of them. Also, my merc and valk refused to cooperate and lured more and more of them. Slow missiles helped but not much. Izual died surprisingly fast, no idea why.
Hellforge netted me Lem. No use for that. Chaos sanctuary was a pain. Several OK packs kept me on my toes. Merc died over 10 times. Together with diablo the place took over 3 hours to clear. Not something i'd want to do again.
Durability lost in act 4 - 0

Act five, the hardest of all acts. I was confidant. Spark didn't have a single NDE so far and has defeated everything game threw at her. Outdoor areas were full with archers again. My merc died every few steps. Valk didn't last too long as well. Sometimes archers would take such positions that i'd have major trouble even casting slow missiles.

Caves and lots of frenzytaurs here. My first NDE happened here. I saw a nasty frenzytaur pack, Cursed + extra strong + CE. I ran and accidently clicked evil urn which created another pack on frenzytaurs around me. Quite stupid mistake on my part and i almost died. Made it out with one rejuv. Frozen river had gloams, vipers and succubi. Eeek, it was lots of dodging shots. Some gloams shooting from another side cost me lots of nerves.
Back to the caves, more frenzytaurs. One particulary strong pack took about 20 minutes to kill. I ran through frozen tundra. Caves again, guess whats inside? Fortunately i found stairs quickly and got the hell out of there.

Ancients. I swapped frostburns for cleglaws pincers, equiped Life tap wand on switch. Merc got a "strength" polearm for increased CB chance. First fight was a failure, merc died way too quickly to inflict some damage on them. Second time however i kept whirler on valkyrie and merc got some good hits against leaper and thrower. Then whirler changed plans and killed merc in heartbeat. Then *somehow* i managed to separate them. Valkyrie tanked leaper while IA burned him. Talic took much longer, because he was FI. I let valk kill him on her own (thrower was nowhere to be seen). It took a while but i was never in danger. Thrower alone died easily. Wsk 1 had a nasty stair trap. There was marauder boss pack nearby and many succubi shooting from all sides. Im glad i always go to WSK with rejuv-only belt. Other levels were easy, as was throne. All waves were killed quickly. Lister was one tough bugger tho, FIPI. I couldnt inflict any damage on him. After i went through full belt of mana potions his health bar almost haven't changed. I had to park him :sad2: Baal was decimated by CB. And...

Frostburn
Gauntlets
Defense: 58
Durability: 2 of 13
Required Strength: 60
Required Level: 29
Item Version: 1.10 Expansion
Item Level: 49
Fingerprint: 0x2bceb3f1
+17% Enhanced Defense
+5% Enhanced Damage
+30 Defense
Adds 1-6 cold damage over 2 seconds
Increase Maximum Mana 40%
Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired)

This was my fourth sept character. Most challenging and fun to play too. Next, barbarian (following Nightfish's guide) or assassin (using pheonix strike)


P.s I clicked wrong button and submitted thread while it was still unfinished. Ooops. Anyway, im not showing items unless someone's interested. They're so crappy that im ashamed.

Have a good day and thanks for reading!

Edit : lots of mistakes here, sorry about that. English isn't my native language so i hope it isn't too hard to read.


Ashwood bow of simplicity (+3 to bow and crossbow skills, -30% requirments. Socketed with Psaphire for additional cold duration)

Crown "Lore"

Sepentskin armor "Smoke"

Prismatic amulet of sentinel (16 res all, +2 mdr)

Frostburns (already posted in first post)

Mesh belt Imp cord (19 FR, 29 CR, +2 to life. Upgrated to hold more potions)

Ring Viper coil ( 1 MDR, 21 CR, 3 LL, 9 Mf)

Garnet ring (27 fire resist)

Heavy boots Demon greaves (10 FR, 19 LR, poison length reduced by 25%, self repairing).

Then few charms, here are the best ones :

Coral small charm of frost (9Lr and 1-2 cold damage)
Lapis small charm of frost (6CR and 1-2 cold damage)

Doh, forgot merc gear. Here it is

Cryptic axe "honor" (94-399 damage. He was dealing up to 2.5k with might aura)
Light plate "Duress"
Full helm Spirit cowl (cold, poison resists. A bit of life)

I still can't believe i haven't gambled any decent boots or belt. I picked everything worth more than 5k and gambled. Nothing.. Also i cubed all rings/amulets but it didn't result into anything good
 
Originally posted by @Pyrotechnician on Apr 21, 2013:

Guardian FreezingBarrage - Freezing Arrow/Stafe Amazon

Alright, another one while I’m trying to get caught up on my guardians.

Guardian FreezingBarrage

This is a FA/Strafe amazon, she was mostly my inbetween group play character for a long time until she finally completed hell mode.

Stats/Skills:
Code:
Name:       FreezingBarrage
Class:      Amazon
Experience: 1433668384
Level:      88

            Naked/Gear
Strength:   85/99
Dexterity:  85/156
Vitality:   340/340
Energy:     20/50
HP:         1244/1411
Mana:       153/298
Stamina:    491/531
Defense:    21/628
AR:         395/969

Fire:       128/88/28
Cold:       120/80/20
Lightning:  150/110/50
Poison:     136/96/36

MF:         8       Block:      20
GF:         0
FR/W:       20
FHR:        20
IAS:        40
FCR:        0

Magic Arrow: 1/10
Fire Arrow: 0/0
Cold Arrow: 20/29
Multiple Shot: 1/10
Exploding Arrow: 0/0
Ice Arrow: 1/10
Guided Arrow: 1/10
Strafe: 20/29
Immolation Arrow: 0/0
Freezing Arrow: 20/29

Inner Sight: 1/4
Critical Strike: 4/7
Dodge: 8/11
Slow Missiles: 1/4
Avoid: 8/11
Penetrate: 1/4
Decoy: 1/4
Evade: 8/11
Valkyrie: 1/4
Pierce: 2/5

Jab: 0/0
Power Strike: 0/0
Poison Javelin: 0/0
Impale: 0/0
Lightning Bolt: 0/0
Charged Strike: 0/0
Plague Javelin: 0/0
Fend: 0/0
Lightning Strike: 0/0
Lightning Fury: 0/0

Gear:
Code:
Shadow Knot
Ring
Required Level: 47
Fingerprint: 0xbefb6a9f
Item Level: 59
Version: Expansion 1.10+
5% Life stolen per hit
+12 to Strength
+57 to Mana
Poison Resist +30%
8% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Level 2 Dim Vision (25/25 Charges)

Razortail
Sharkskin Belt
Defense: 104
Durability: 14 of 14
Required Level: 32
Required Strength: 20
Fingerprint: 0x842ecf4a
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Piercing Attack
+10 to Maximum Damage
+141% Enhanced Defense
+15 Defense
+15 to Dexterity
Attacker Takes Damage of (Based on Character Level) 88

Raven Frost
Ring
Required Level: 45
Fingerprint: 0x2fdca753
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+219 to Attack Rating
Adds 15 - 45 Cold Damage Over 4 Secs (100 Frames)
+18 to Dexterity
+40 to Mana
Cold Absorb 20%
Cannot Be Frozen

Smoke
Scale Mail
NefLum
Defense: 103
Durability: 36 of 36
Required Level: 37
Required Strength: 44
Fingerprint: 0xa6bad056
Item Level: 20
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+20% Faster Hit Recovery
+75% Enhanced Defense
+280 Defense vs. Missile
+10 to Energy
All Resistances +50
-1 to Light Radius
Level 6 Weaken (18/18 Charges)
2 Sockets (2 used)
Socketed: Nef Rune
Socketed: Lum Rune

Nef Rune
Required Level: 13
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: Knockback
Armor: +30 Defense vs. Missile
Shields: +30 Defense vs. Missile

Lum Rune
Required Level: 37
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: +10 to Energy
Armor: +10 to Energy
Shields: +10 to Energy

Waterwalk
Sharkskin Boots
Defense: 119
Durability: 14 of 14
Required Level: 32
Required Strength: 47
Fingerprint: 0xee89026a
Item Level: 59
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+20% Faster Run/Walk
+198% Enhanced Defense
+100 Defense vs. Missile
+15 to Dexterity
+63 to Life
+40 Maximum Stamina
Heal Stamina Plus 50%
+5% to Maximum Fire Resist

Witchwild String
Short Siege Bow
Two Hand Damage: 33 - 77
Durability: 28 of 40
Required Level: 39
Required Strength: 65
Required Dexterity: 80
Fingerprint: 0x38b97c06
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
2% Chance to cast level 5 Amplify Damage on striking
+40% Increased Attack Speed
Fires Magic Arrows
159% Enhanced Damage
**% Deadly Strike (Based on Character Level)
All Resistances +40
2 Sockets (2 used)
Socketed: Shael Rune
Socketed: Shael Rune

Shael Rune
Required Level: 29
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: +20% Increased Attack Speed
Armor: +20% Faster Hit Recovery
Shields: +20% Faster Block Rate

Shael Rune
Required Level: 29
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: +20% Increased Attack Speed
Armor: +20% Faster Hit Recovery
Shields: +20% Faster Block Rate

Vampire Gaze
Grim Helm
Defense: 252
Durability: 40 of 40
Required Level: 47
Required Strength: 58
Fingerprint: 0x3319213a
Item Level: 99
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Adds 6 - 22 Cold Damage Over 4 Secs (100 Frames)
7% Mana stolen per hit
8% Life stolen per hit
+100% Enhanced Defense
15% Slower Stamina Drain
All Resistances +15
Damage Reduced by 20%
Magic Damage Reduced by 15
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Um Rune

Um Rune
Required Level: 47
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: 25% Chance of Open Wounds
Armor: Cold Resist +15%
Lightning Resist +15%
Fire Resist +15%
Poison Resist +15%
Shields: Cold Resist +22%
Lightning Resist +22%
Fire Resist +22%
Poison Resist +22%

Stone Talisman
Amulet
Required Level: 41
Fingerprint: 0xe333640
Item Level: 55
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Amazon Skill Levels
Adds 1 - 3 Cold Damage Over 2 Secs (50 Frames)
+2 to Dexterity
+29 to Life
Cold Resist +21%
Fire Resist +22%

Glyph Knuckle
Heavy Gloves
Defense: 11
Durability: 14 of 14
Required Level: 30
Fingerprint: 0x8618ed85
Item Level: 59
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to Bow and Crossbow Skills (Amazon Only)
3% Mana stolen per hit
+66% Enhanced Defense
+2 to Strength
+1 to Dexterity

Lycander's Aim
Ceremonial Bow
Two Hand Damage: 80 - 168
Durability: 48 of 55
Required Level: 42
Required Strength: 73
Required Dexterity: 110
Fingerprint: 0x836b66d6
Item Level: 59
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to Bow and Crossbow Skills (Amazon Only)
+2 to Amazon Skill Levels
+40% Increased Attack Speed
190% Enhanced Damage
Adds 25 - 50 Damage
7% Mana stolen per hit
+20% Enhanced Defense
+20 to Dexterity
+20 to Energy
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Shael Rune

Shael Rune
Required Level: 29
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: +20% Increased Attack Speed
Armor: +20% Faster Hit Recovery
Shields: +20% Faster Block Rate

Arrows
Fingerprint: 0x909bdfac
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+

Harmony
Crusader Bow
TirIthSolKo
Two Hand Damage: 64 - 242
Durability: 42 of 44
Required Level: 57
Required Strength: 97
Required Dexterity: 121
Fingerprint: 0xbf4e8aa
Item Level: 82
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Level 10 Vigor Aura When Equipped
271% Enhanced Damage
+9 to Minimum Damage
+9 to Maximum Damage
Adds 55 - 160 Fire Damage
Adds 55 - 160 Lightning Damage
Adds 55 - 160 Cold Damage Over 2 Secs (60 Frames)
+4 to Valkyrie
+10 to Dexterity
Regenerate Mana 20%
+2 to Mana after each Kill
+2 to Light Radius
Level 20 Revive (25/25 Charges)
4 Sockets (4 used)
Socketed: Tir Rune
Socketed: Ith Rune
Socketed: Sol Rune
Socketed: Ko Rune

Tir Rune
Required Level: 13
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: +2 to Mana after each Kill
Armor: +2 to Mana after each Kill
Shields: +2 to Mana after each Kill

Ith Rune
Required Level: 15
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: +9 to Maximum Damage
Armor: 15% Damage Taken Goes To Mana
Shields: 15% Damage Taken Goes To Mana

Sol Rune
Required Level: 27
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: +9 to Minimum Damage
Armor: Damage Reduced by 7
Shields: Damage Reduced by 7

Ko Rune
Required Level: 39
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: +10 to Dexterity
Armor: +10 to Dexterity
Shields: +10 to Dexterity

Arrows
Fingerprint: 0xe9cbd684
Item Level: 93
Version: Expansion 1.10+

Inventory:
Code:
Tome of Town Portal
Fingerprint: 0x3cd769b6
Item Level: 11
Version: Expansion 1.10+

Tome of Identify
Fingerprint: 0x6f727fee
Item Level: 11
Version: Expansion 1.10+

Horadric Cube
Fingerprint: 0x3bf52d17
Item Level: 28
Version: Expansion 1.10+

Shimmering Small Charm
Small Charm
Required Level: 25
Fingerprint: 0x7b612308
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
All Resistances +4

Viridian Small Charm of Vita
Small Charm
Required Level: 39
Fingerprint: 0x1ac85761
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+20 to Life
Poison Resist +7%

Fletcher's Grand Charm of Maiming
Grand Charm
Required Level: 63
Fingerprint: 0x9c46a91d
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Bow and Crossbow Skills (Amazon Only)
+4 to Maximum Damage

Coral Small Charm
Small Charm
Required Level: 20
Fingerprint: 0x16fffbf0
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Lightning Resist +8%

Fletcher's Grand Charm of Life
Grand Charm
Required Level: 42
Fingerprint: 0x72229cb4
Item Level: 55
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Bow and Crossbow Skills (Amazon Only)
+20 to Life

Serpent's Grand Charm of Sustenance
Grand Charm
Required Level: 35
Fingerprint: 0xcadd2d22
Item Level: 55
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+21 to Life
+48 to Mana

Amber Grand Charm of Storms
Grand Charm
Required Level: 22
Fingerprint: 0xc6f48397
Item Level: 61
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Adds 1 - 32 Lightning Damage
Lightning Resist +28%

Toxic Large Charm of Life
Large Charm
Required Level: 38
Fingerprint: 0x6a071897
Item Level: 59
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Adds 90 Poison Damage Over 5 Secs (125 Frames)
+14 to Life

Russet Small Charm
Small Charm
Required Level: 10
Fingerprint: 0x197a72c3
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Fire Resist +7%

Amber Large Charm
Large Charm
Required Level: 27
Fingerprint: 0xcb1ba3c7
Item Level: 73
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Lightning Resist +15%

Arrows
Fingerprint: 0x40f0b778
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+

Key
Fingerprint: 0x54d7dfdb
Item Level: 66
Version: Expansion 1.10+

Merc:
Code:
Name:       Durga
Race:       Desert Mercenary
Type:       Off-Nightmare
Experience: 82718626
Level:      88
Dead?:      false

            Naked/Gear
Strength:   191/196
Dexterity:  154/159
HP:         1887/1887
Defense:    1387/2639
AR:         1946/395038

Fire:       196/156/96
Cold:       211/171/111
Lightning:  189/149/89
Poison:    152/112/52

Rockstopper
Sallet
Defense: 163
Durability: 17 of 18
Required Level: 31
Required Strength: 43
Fingerprint: 0xa44f714c
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+30% Faster Hit Recovery
+160% Enhanced Defense
+15 to Vitality
Cold Resist +29%
Lightning Resist +37%
Fire Resist +44%
Damage Reduced by 10%

Treachery
Great Hauberk
ShaelThulLem
Defense: 1089
Durability: 26 of 26
Required Level: 56
Required Strength: 108
Fingerprint: 0x85dc309f
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
5% Chance to cast level 15 Fade when struck
25% Chance to cast level 15 Venom on striking
+2 to Assassin Skill Levels
+45% Increased Attack Speed
+20% Faster Hit Recovery
Cold Resist +30%
50% Extra Gold from Monsters
Ethereal
3 Sockets (3 used)
Socketed: Shael Rune
Socketed: Thul Rune
Socketed: Lem Rune

Shael Rune
Required Level: 29
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: +20% Increased Attack Speed
Armor: +20% Faster Hit Recovery
Shields: +20% Faster Block Rate

Thul Rune
Required Level: 23
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: Adds 3 - 14 Cold Damage Over 3 Secs (75 Frames)
Armor: Cold Resist +30%
Shields: Cold Resist +35%

Lem Rune
Required Level: 43
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: 75% Extra Gold from Monsters
Armor: 50% Extra Gold from Monsters
Shields: 50% Extra Gold from Monsters

Insight
Great Poleaxe
RalTirTalSol
Two Hand Damage: 170 - 444
Durability: 43 of 55
Required Level: 63
Required Strength: 179
Required Dexterity: 99
Fingerprint: 0xd8074596
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Level 16 Meditation Aura When Equipped
+35% Faster Cast Rate
250% Enhanced Damage
+9 to Minimum Damage
202% Bonus to Attack Rating
Adds 5 - 30 Fire Damage
Adds 75 Poison Damage Over 5 Secs (125 Frames)
+6 to Critical Strike
All Stats +5
+2 to Mana after each Kill
23% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
4 Sockets (4 used)
Socketed: Ral Rune
Socketed: Tir Rune
Socketed: Tal Rune
Socketed: Sol Rune

Ral Rune
Required Level: 19
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: Adds 5 - 30 Fire Damage
Armor: Fire Resist +30%
Shields: Fire Resist +35%

Tir Rune
Required Level: 13
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: +2 to Mana after each Kill
Armor: +2 to Mana after each Kill
Shields: +2 to Mana after each Kill

Tal Rune
Required Level: 17
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: Adds 75 Poison Damage Over 5 Secs (125 Frames)
Armor: Poison Resist +30%
Shields: Poison Resist +35%

Sol Rune
Required Level: 27
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: +9 to Minimum Damage
Armor: Damage Reduced by 7
Shields: Damage Reduced by 7

Ok, moving on, there wasn’t one particular group that this character belonged too. Pretty much anytime that enough group members failed to show up, I fired up this character. I realize that 3 bows are listed above, I used Lysander’s with WWS on switch for a long time before eventually switching the WWS to harmony and keeping the WWS in my stash for use during situations that called for it.

Build and Gear progression:
I went through various items on my journey. During early game I used my standard twink set of haurus/cleglaws/isenharts/angelic mish mash until I was able to equip vidala’s set. The set itself isn’t that great however and it was soon replaced by other gear. A wizendraw was used for most of early game as it’s the only bow with –cold res, a good boost to FA early on, but otherwise the mods on the bow are lacking. Once I reached later levels, I settled on Lysander’s bow, with WWS on switch. I would freeze enemies with Lysander’s (since it netted me +4 to FA) and then strafe away with WWS, hoping that amp would proc. Eventually I gave up on strafe unless the enemy was cold immune, so I used harmony bow on switch for faster movement and the varying elemental damage was always helpful.

I actually used crow caw armor for most of nightmare, it provided me with ias and dex, and with my gear set I needed the ias. However in hell my resistances were so bad, that I had to switch to smoke to have positive numbers, sacrificing the attack speed.

Questing and Gameplay:
Unfortunately I don’t remember a lot about her questing. It was various pieced together play times over the course of a year pretty much (or at least it feels like a year). She took on NM baal on her own, but for the end of hell mode she went along with Pindleskin (Phar’s charger) and Jack (Fred’s Holy Shock Pally) through most of act 5 (and probably more). Her resistances were always lacking, and I think she is probably my only guardian that didn’t have max fire and light resistances by the end of the game.

I do know that I maxed Frozen Arrow followed by strafe and cold arrow, and picked up the passive skills as they became available with one point in each. I dumped remaining points in the passives for added safety and physical damage.

Frozen arrow made things very safe as everything was stuck in its place, my strafe, although maxed, just didn’t have the large damage output that I was hoping for with the bows I had available at the time. The majority of the time was spent spamming FA until other members of my party killed the frozen enemies.

I wasn’t level ** when I reached end game, however there were multiple baal/chaos runs in between guardian and the write-up of this thread so I’d say I was somewhere around 82 when I finally killed Hell Baal, although I’m not completely sure.

Future Plans:
Respecing to be able to use the windforce that Pharphis generously donated. Surprisingly I didn’t have enough dex to use it when he gave it to me recently so I have yet to do that until I wrote this thread as I felt it was a bad representation of my character to show it after I had better gear available.

She sees use in various MP runs from time to time, because a frozen enemy = safety, and everyone loves safety in HC. Now that I actually have a decent weapon to strafe with though, I expect I will probably re-gear her a bit and she will see a bit more use.

Screenshots for your enjoyment:

NM Baal, Ancients, Baal, Baal, Baal, and Tyrael.

Thanks for Reading!
 
Originally posted by RIP on Feb 13, 2008:

Guardian Gabrielle - The M'avina's Magezon

Hello friends

i'm very proud to introduce You my second Guardian (based on class specific set) - Gabrielle, The Mav's set Magezon

So we can start with some pictures:

LCS (Freeze arrow)

LCS (Immolation arrow)

Bow tree

Pasive and Magic tree


As You can see, she is pure Magezon, so skills were distributed that way:

20 Cold Arrow
20 Freeze Arrow
20 Imolation arrow
16 Exploding arrow
9 Valkyrie

+prerequisities and 1point investment to Critical strike (it helped me on the beginning)

Mavina's set is great for this build because of huge resists (+100% with full set), +4 all skills and +2 to Bow and also passive tree and thats probably everything this zon needs...



Equipment:


Rich (BB code):
Gabrielle's M'avina's Caster
Grand Matron Bow
'Shael'
Two-Hand Damage: 40 to 207
(Amazon Only)
Required Dexterity: 152
Required Strength: 108
Required Level: 70
Bow Class - Fastest Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x21728ece
+188% Enhanced Damage
+50 to Attack Rating
60% Increased Attack Speed
Fires Magic Arrows

***Partial Set Item Bonuses***
Adds 114-377 magic damage
10% Chance to cast Level 15 Nova on striking
+2 to Bow and Crossbow Skills (Amazon Only)
***Partial Set Item Bonuses***

Socketed (1: 1 used)



Gabrielle's M'avina's Caster
Grand Matron Bow
Two-Hand Damage: 40 to 207
(Amazon Only)
Required Dexterity: 152
Required Strength: 108
Required Level: 70
Bow Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x785098e4
+188% Enhanced Damage
+50 to Attack Rating
40% Increased Attack Speed
Fires Magic Arrows

***Partial Set Item Bonuses***
Adds 114-377 magic damage
10% Chance to cast Level 15 Nova on striking
+2 to Bow and Crossbow Skills (Amazon Only)
***Partial Set Item Bonuses***




M'avina's True Sight
Diadem
Defense: 203
Durability: 20 of 20
Required Level: 64
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x35bb9708
+25 to Mana
+150 Defense
Replenish Life +10
24% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
30% Increased Attack Speed

***Partial Set Item Bonuses***
+1 to All Skill Levels
50% Bonus to Attack Rating
All Resistances +25
***Partial Set Item Bonuses***

Socketed (1: 1 used)



M'avina's Embrace
Kraken Shell
Defense: 1192
Durability: 48 of 48
Required Strength: 122
Required Level: 70
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x6d460d43
+350 Defense
Magic Damage Reduced by 5
24% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Requirements -30%
+2 to Passive and Magic Skills (Amazon Only)
10% Chance to cast Level 3 Glacial Spike when struck
+340 to Defense (Based on Character Level)

***Partial Set Item Bonuses***
30% Faster Hit Recovery
***Partial Set Item Bonuses***

Socketed (1: 1 used)



M'avina's Icy Clutch
Battle Gauntlets
Defense: 95
Durability: 18 of 18
Required Strength: 88
Required Level: 32
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0xd968bd9a
+10 to Strength
+15 to Dexterity
+50 Defense
Adds 6-18 cold damage over 6 seconds
56% Extra Gold from Monsters
Half Freeze Duration

***Partial Set Item Bonuses***
Adds 131-252 cold damage over 4 seconds
+20% to Cold Skill Damage
***Partial Set Item Bonuses***




M'avina's Tenet
Sharkskin Belt
Defense: 86
Durability: 14 of 14
Required Strength: 20
Required Level: 45
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x9e07173a
+50 Defense
5% Mana stolen per hit
+5 to Light Radius
20% Faster Run/Walk

***Partial Set Item Bonuses***
All Resistances +25
***Partial Set Item Bonuses***



War Traveler
Battle Boots
Defense: 129
Durability: 48 of 48
Required Strength: 95
Required Level: 42
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x139aab3b
+10 to Strength
+10 to Vitality
+169% Enhanced Defense
+15 to Minimum Damage
+25 to Maximum Damage
+30 Maximum Durability
Attacker Takes Damage of 10
40% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
25% Faster Run/Walk
40% Slower Stamina Drain




Mara's Kaleidoscope
Amulet
Required Level: 67
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x1904491
+5 to Strength
+5 to Energy
+5 to Dexterity
+5 to Vitality
All Resistances +21
+2 to All Skill Levels




Raven Frost
Ring
Required Level: 45
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x3c14a44b
+19 to Dexterity
+40 to Mana
+241 to Attack Rating
Adds 15-45 cold damage over 4 seconds
20% Cold Absorb
Cannot Be Frozen




Viper Eye
Ring
Required Level: 29
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 41
Fingerprint: 0xada202ca
+13 to Energy
+9 to Life
+85 to Mana
Cold Resist +22%
2% Mana stolen per hit
+1 to Mana After Each Kill


War travs used for its MF% and Strenght bonus, Maras and Raven are obvious choices i think and rare ring for + mana bonus, because skills of my lady were eating mana orb like mad (especially that i play Vanilla, so no Insight)


Now charms (check it properly :wink3:, there are some very nice):

Rich (BB code):
Fletcher's Grand Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 42
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 55
Fingerprint: 0xace5bb20
+1 to Bow and Crossbow Skills (Amazon Only)



Fletcher's Grand Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 42
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x407ef4e9
+1 to Bow and Crossbow Skills (Amazon Only)



Serpent's Grand Charm of Storms
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 35
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 47
Fingerprint: 0xb26e7f1e
+50 to Mana
Adds 1-31 lightning damage



Amber Small Charm of Sustenance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 32
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0xaeaa46ed
+13 to Life
Lightning Resist +10%



Amber Small Charm of Life
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 32
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 81
Fingerprint: 0x11fdbd6f
+6 to Life
Lightning Resist +11%



Cobalt Small Charm of Vita
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 39
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0xa261dbca
+16 to Life
Cold Resist +9%



Sapphire Small Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 32
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x2fcdf972
Cold Resist +11%



Ruby Small Charm of Vita
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 39
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x27d1a1d0
+16 to Life
Fire Resist +11%



Ruby Small Charm of Vita
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 39
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0xc40841e9
+19 to Life
Fire Resist +11%



Snake's Small Charm of Frost
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 24
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x3067947a
+12 to Mana
Adds 1-2 cold damage over 1 seconds



Snake's Small Charm of Sustenance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 24
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0xd3d225cd
+12 to Life
+9 to Mana



Small Charm of Vita
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 39
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x47e96303
+19 to Life



Small Charm of Vita
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 39
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xf8f496f9
+19 to Life



Jade Small Charm of the Glacier
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 25
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0xda6b2cf7
Poison Resist +8%
Adds 3-6 cold damage over 1 seconds



Amber Small Charm of Frost
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 32
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x989c51b0
Lightning Resist +11%
Adds 1-2 cold damage over 1 seconds



Ocher Small Charm of Vita
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 39
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xa8e0f58a
+19 to Life
Lightning Resist +6%



Ocher Small Charm of Sustenance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 17
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 39
Fingerprint: 0x232538f6
+15 to Life
Lightning Resist +7%



Serpent's Small Charm of Dexterity
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 40
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x7361b603
+1 to Dexterity
+16 to Mana



Serpent's Small Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 40
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x3aa1939f
+15 to Mana



Serpent's Small Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 40
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x1f21c12a
+15 to Mana



Ruby Small Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 32
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x2edfdde0
Fire Resist +11%



Small Charm of Vita
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 39
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 62
Fingerprint: 0x5bce36e8
+17 to Life



Serpent's Small Charm of Greed
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 40
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0xe3026380
+15 to Mana
10% Extra Gold from Monsters

Important mods were +res, +life, +mana and also +cold damage just because they extended freeze duration of Freeze arrow nicely...


Merc:

Act 2 NM offensive (Might aura)

Gear for questing:

Rich (BB code):
Vampire Gaze
Grim Helm
Defense: 378
Durability: 21 of 21
Required Strength: 48
Required Level: 41
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 83
Fingerprint: 0xbc105519
+100% Enhanced Defense
Magic Damage Reduced by 13
Damage Reduced by 15%
Adds 6-22 cold damage over 4 seconds
8% Life stolen per hit
6% Mana stolen per hit
15% Slower Stamina Drain
Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired)



Duriel's Shell
Cuirass
Defense: 710
Durability: 29 of 150
Required Strength: 65
Required Level: 41
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 59
Fingerprint: 0x8822d8ab
+15 to Strength
+198% Enhanced Defense
Fire Resist +20%
Lightning Resist +20%
Cold Resist +50%
Poison Resist +20%
+100 Maximum Durability
Cannot Be Frozen
+106 to Defense (Based on Character Level)
+85 to Life (Based on Character Level)



Passion
Stygian Pike
'DolOrtEldLem'
Two-Hand Damage: 122 to 613
Durability: 18 of 18
Required Dexterity: 87
Required Strength: 158
Required Level: 49
Spear Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x653c2600
+184% Enhanced Damage
Adds 1-50 lightning damage
75% Extra Gold from Monsters
25% Increased Attack Speed
+1 to Berserk
+1 to Zeal
Hit Causes Monster to Flee 25%
Hit Blinds Target +10
75% Bonus to Attack Rating
75% Damage to Undead
+50 to Attack Rating against Undead
Level 3 Heart of Wolverine (12/12 Charges)
Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired), Socketed (4: 4 used)


For Bosses/Ancients was Vampire gaze replaced by Guillaumes face and Passion by Kelpie snare...



General thoughts, notable finds and events:

Firstly, this character is very safe and i need to say one of the easiest i ever played.Freeze arrow is devastating skill against everything non CI, monsters had not chance just to move...And Immolation arrow proved to be good backup against those CI,because they've been many times just in hit recovery and waiting for another hit...So all this resulted into very important information - she had none NDEs at all...To be honest, there were few very tough moments, first was while fighting Diablo in Normal (merc and Valkyrie were too weak, so i fought alone against him), second when many Souls in Act 4 Nightmare used crossfire and my zon had no chance to hide, third when i fought against double Boss pack of the Souls on the same place like in Nightmare, but this time in Hell and one the Bosses had nice Convinction aura...And one minute lately again another Soul Boss with Convinction aura, yeah, theese moments were scary...
And now Act 5 Hell - I have feeling that any of my characters must be more lucky then this zone, while speaking about monster rolls...Almost everything was ranged/CI or Physical Imunne/FI/Cold enchanted, ok, not that bad, but not nice at all...After whole day of tough fighting i finally reached Arreat summit...i expected the worst possible scenario, so i covered this place by blue/red colour and also by packs of arrows (yes, i'm able to learn from my previous faults)...Ancients are aproaching - pause for one heart beat
, ohh no, two of them are CI...Only Madawc is only LI, so lets start with him...but when aproximatelly 1/10 of his life bar was remaining, i decided to run for some potions, Valk and merc followed my zon...and what a surprise...Only leaper Ancient was trying to fight.
It was rough fault - his fault...he went down very quickly due to Merc and Valkyrie physical attack (CB) and zons Immolation arrow...Then Madawc fell very quickly and whirler was just a piece of cake...
As for WK - simply i had huge luck, while speaking about map...First lvl was filled by three types CI monsters, but entrance to the second lvl was near...on the second lvl were souls (i should expect them), but no CI monsters, so this was relativelly easy...third lvl was
again straight run to the next chamber...On last lvl were Oblivions, Blood lords or how they are called (the Meteor throwers) and last type i do not remember...we killed them all...Baal minions were killed by Freeze arrow, same for Baal himself...

Gabrielle is now Guardian...

End of story...


Finds:

Rich (BB code):
Ethereal Edge
Silver-edged Axe
Two-Hand Damage: 240 to 427
Required Dexterity: 55
Required Strength: 156
Required Level: 74
Axe Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Indestructible
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0xef4d3857
+159% Enhanced Damage
+322 to Attack Rating
25% Increased Attack Speed
184% Damage to Demons
+5 Life after each Demon Kill
+10 Fire Absorb
Indestructible
Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired)



Bonehew
Ogre Axe
Two-Hand Damage: 112 to 581
Durability: 46 of 50
Required Dexterity: 75
Required Strength: 195
Required Level: 64
Polearm Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 73
Fingerprint: 0xfc3fab82
+301% Enhanced Damage
30% Increased Attack Speed
Prevent Monster Heal
50% Chance to cast Level 16 Bone Spear on striking
Level 14 Corpse Explosion (9/30 Charges)
Socketed (2: 0 used)




Heaven's Light
Mighty Scepter
One-Hand Damage: 144 to 188
Durability: 49 of 50
Required Dexterity: 65
Required Strength: 125
Required Level: 61
Mace Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 78
Fingerprint: 0x7b0653be
+262% Enhanced Damage
+2 to Paladin Skill Levels
+3 to Light Radius
20% Increased Attack Speed
-33% Target Defense
150% Damage to Undead
33% Chance of Crushing Blow
+16 Life after each Demon Kill
Socketed (1: 0 used)




Sandstorm Trek
Scarabshell Boots
Defense: 165
Durability: 14 of 14
Kick Damage: 60 to 110
Required Strength: 91
Required Level: 64
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 79
Fingerprint: 0xdfca4ad8
+11 to Strength
+14 to Vitality
+150% Enhanced Defense
Poison Resist +70%
20% Faster Run/Walk
20% Faster Hit Recovery
50% Slower Stamina Drain
+1 to Maximum Stamina (Based on Character Level)
Repairs 1 durability in 20 seconds



Titan's Revenge
Ceremonial Javelin
Throw Damage: 73 to 194
One-Hand Damage: 73 to 143
Quantity: 140
(Amazon Only)
Required Dexterity: 109
Required Strength: 25
Required Level: 42
Javelin Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0xffb34dc3
+20 to Strength
+20 to Dexterity
+167% Enhanced Damage
+25 to Minimum Damage
+50 to Maximum Damage
9% Life stolen per hit
+2 to Amazon Skill Levels
30% Faster Run/Walk
+2 to Javelin and Spear Skills (Amazon Only)
Replenishes Quantity
Increased Stack Size



Naj's Puzzler
Elder Staff
Two-Hand Damage: 200 to 232
Durability: 23 of 35
Required Dexterity: 37
Required Strength: 44
Required Level: 78
Staff Class - Normal Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 99
Fingerprint: 0x783bad75
+35 to Energy
+70 to Mana
+150% Enhanced Damage
Adds 6-45 lightning damage
30% Faster Cast Rate
150% Damage to Undead
+1 to All Skill Levels
Level 11 Teleport (22/69 Charges)


Runes:

Rich (BB code):
Lum Rune
Can be Inserted into Socketed Items

Weapons: +10 to Energy
Helms: +10 to Energy
Armor: +10 to Energy
Shields: +10 to Energy

Required Level: 37
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion




Io Rune
Can be Inserted into Socketed Items

Weapons: +10 to Vitality
Helms: +10 to Vitality
Armor: +10 to Vitality
Shields: +10 to Vitality

Required Level: 35
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion




Ko Rune
Can be Inserted into Socketed Items

Weapons: +10 to Dexterity
Helms: +10 to Dexterity
Armor: +10 to Dexterity
Shields: +10 to Dexterity

Required Level: 39
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion


HF (Normal/NM/Hell):


Barbarian and Amazon part finished, next character will be Summon/Poison/Fire Trang Necromancer


Thanks for reading this and hopefully it was not too long...

RIP
 
Originally posted by shintyguy on Mar 7, 2012:

Guardian Kindle, an Amazon brand

Brand new and exclusive to Diablo Incgamers





The new Guardian Kindle, an Amazon brand

With loads of Dexterity and no Vitality, this is a one-off creation that will cost you loads of Purple pots and lost sleep wondering whether
or not the risk is worth so many twinked goods. Kindle is a high end performance tool, however is very fragile. No refunds if you damage
it.


System Statistics

Code:
Name:Kindle
Class: Amazon

Experience:
524864891

Level:   77

    Naked/Gear

Strength:152/153
Dexterity:283/283
Vitality:20/20
Energy:15/15
HP: 264/264
Mana:121/121
Stamina:147/147
Defense: 70/70
AR:        1385/1403

Fire: 73/33/-27
Cold:59/19/-41
Lightning:64/24/-36
Poison: 50/10/-5

MF: 9       Block:      43
GF:    0    FR/W:3
FHR: 0 IAS:0 FCR:0
Please ensure you follow the below rules while using this product

  1. Does not react well to fire/cold/poison/physical attention
  2. If Kindle is damaged in way shape or form, it will perform a system crash resulting in loss of everything
  3. As Kindle is very fragile do not use if tired/distracted/angry/upset/drunk.
Software
Code:
Magic Arrow: 1/1
Fire Arrow: 1/1
Cold Arrow: 1/1
Multiple Shot: 1/1
Exploding Arrow: 1/1
Ice Arrow: 0/0
Guided Arrow: 1/1
Strafe: 20/20
Immolation Arrow: 20/20
Freezing Arrow: 0/0

 
Inner Sight: 1/1
Critical Strike: 8/8
Dodge: 1/1
Slow Missiles: 1/1
Avoid: 1/1
Penetrate: 7/7
Decoy: 1/1
Evade: 1/1
Valkyrie: 20/20
Pierce: 0/0

none is J&S



Strafe is the primary operating system here backed up with the Immolation operating system for use in emergencies only. Multi-shot operating system is also available but is purely end user specific.


The Critical Strike was deemed a necessary add on to support Strafe as, with all things, Strafe in time will not be top end operating system. The Penetrate application will also support this. Any more software add ons will be spent on upgrading this.

Valkyrie software was also purchased with a Slvl20 key. This is a non-optional add on


Hardware
Code:
Vampire Gaze
Grim Helm
Defense: 252
Durability: 39 of 40
Required Level: 47
Required Strength: 58
Fingerprint: 0xc0699334
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion1.10+
Adds 6 - 22 Cold DamageOver 4 Secs (100 Frames)
8% Mana stolen per hit
8% Life stolen per hit
+100% Enhanced Defense
15% Slower StaminaDrain
All Resistances +15
Damage Reduced by 17%
Magic Damage Reduced by 15
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Um Rune




 
Shadow Collar
Amulet
Required Level: 31
Fingerprint: 0x9bd56d39
Item Level: 99
Version: Expansion1.10+
+1 to Amazon Skill Levels
Adds 1 - 3 Fire Damage
All Resistances +20
Fire Resist +17%

 

Toothrow
Sharktooth Armor
Defense: 730
Durability: 56 of 63
Required Level: 48
Required Strength: 103
Fingerprint: 0xc42ccdda
Item Level: 99
Version: Expansion 1.10+
40% Chance of Open Wounds
+161% Enhanced Defense
+55 Defense
+10 to Strength
All Resistances +15
Fire Resist +15%
Attacker Takes Damage of 29
+15 Maximum Durability
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Um Rune

Eagle Gyre
Ring
Required Level: 48
Fingerprint: 0x9fd762d4
Item Level: 58
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+15 to Attack Rating
Adds 1 - 6 Fire Damage
+17 to Mana
All Resistances +11
Poison Resist +22%
35% Extra Gold from Monsters
+1 to Light Radius

Raven Frost
Ring
Required Level: 45
Fingerprint: 0xbbb46c09
Item Level: 76
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+203 to Attack Rating
Adds 15 - 45 Cold nDamage Over 4 Secs (100 Frames)
+18 to Dexterity
+40 to Mana
Cold Absorb 20%
Cannot Be Frozen

 
String of Ears
Demonhide Sash
Defense: 109
Durability: 19 of 22
Required Level: 29
Required Strength: 20
Fingerprint: 0x35e64531
Item Level: 99
Version: Expansion 1.10+
6% Life stolen per hit
+170% Enhanced Defense
+15 Defense
Damage Reduced by 14%
Magic Damage Reduced by 14
+10 Maximum Durability


Natalya's Soul
Mesh Boots
Defense: 155
Durability: 60 of 116
Required Level: 25
Required Strength: 65
Fingerprint: 0xf3a9f61d
Item Level: 59
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+40% Faster Run/Walk
+112 Defense
Heal Stamina Plus (Based on Character Level) +19%
Cold Resist +24%
Lightning Resist +15%
+50 Maximum Durability

Rune Fist
Sharkskin Gloves
Defense: 36
Durability: 8 of 14
Required Level: 57
Required Strength: 20
Fingerprint: 0x9832e2a4
Item Level: 89
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+20% Increased Attack Speed
6% Life stolen per hit
8% Chance of Crushing Blow
+20 to Life
Fire Resist +12%
Poison Resist +13%

Buriza-Do Kyanon
Colossus Crossbow
Two Hand Damage: 92 -454
Durability: 29 of 50
Required Level: 63
Required Strength: 163
Required Dexterity: 77
Fingerprint: 0xa79ca61a
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+80% Increased Attack Speed
Piercing Attack
189% Enhanced Damage
+192 to Maximum Damage (Based on Character Level)
Adds 32 - 196 Cold Damage Over 8 Secs (200 Frames)
Freezes target +3
Knockback
+132 Defense
+35 to Dexterity
Required Level +7
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Nef Rune





Buriza is primary processor however, other processors such as normal bows would increase speed but produce lower output. The 'knock back' program is a desired side effect in order to keep Kindle operating. Do NOT switch it off. Again, Kindle will likely perform instantaneous crash if it is. An upgraded version of the Buriza was made available from
Lut Gholien (thanks to Wraith in catacombs for allowing the upgrade).

A secondary processor has been installed as a backup ? the Immolation Arrow is a slower processor but is useful when dealing with the Stone Skin & Physical Immune spawns.


As a valued end-user, we crafted a special glove program to improve performance and allow more flexibility with other hardware. The 'Crushing blow' application is very helpful when dealing with large opposing applications such as repetitive attacker Lister and the persistent threat Blunderbore application. Both of these are dealt with by Crushing Blow.


The 'Um' additions, both found in the CS, help with the durability of Kindle

System Security

Code:
Mercenary:
Name:       Pratham
Race:       Desert Mercenary
Type:       Off-Nightmare
Experience: 52212046
Level:      75
Dead?:      false

 
   Naked/Gear
Strength:   169/174
Dexterity:  135/160
HP:         1367/1417
Defense:    1018/2343
AR:         1793/1793

Fire:       172/132/72
Cold:       139/99/39
Lightning:  139/99/39
Poison:    139/99/39

 
Black Hades
Chaos Armor
Defense: 1018
Durability: 54 of 70
Required Level: 53
Required Strength: 140
Fingerprint: 0x3682c7d1
Item Level: 94
Version: Expansion 1.10+
10% Enhanced Damage
+55% Damage to Demons
+206 to Attack Rating against Demons
Adds 20 Poison Damage Over 2 Secs (50 Frames
+197% Enhanced Defense
+5 to Strength
Damage Reduced by 14
Half Freeze Duration
-2 to Light Radius
3 Sockets (3 used)
Socketed: Storm Whorl
Socketed: Sol Rune
Socketed: Sol Rune


Crown of Thieves
Grand Crown
Defense: 307
Durability: 50 of 50
Required Level: 49
Required Strength: 103
Fingerprint: 0xc700ab66
Item Level: 94
Version: Expansion 1.10+
6% Enhanced Damage
10% Life stolen per hit
+170% Enhanced Defense
+25 to Dexterity
+50 to Life
+35 to Mana
Fire Resist +33%
97% Extra Gold from Monsters
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Cinnabar Jewel

Bonehew
Ogre Axe
Two Hand Damage: 106 - 553
Durability: 38 of 50
Required Level: 64
Required Strength: 156
Required Dexterity: 60
Fingerprint: 0xef0f787b
Item Level: 99
Version: Expansion 1.10+
50% Chance to cast level 16 Bone Spear on striking
+30% Increased Attack Speed
282% Enhanced Damage
7% Life stolen per hit
Prevent Monster Heal
Level 14 Corpse Explosion (25/30 Charges)
Requirements -20%
2 Sockets (2 used)
Socketed: Hel Rune
Socketed: Amn Rune

Pratham provides the security that works in tandem with Valkyrie program to provide firewall. The merc comes built in with Holy Freeze & Kelpie anti-monster to allow Buriza processor enough time to devise workaround. Valkyrie also gets in the way of attacks and should not be underrated either.
Kelpie was removed on the development of the Bonehew supplement as it is more aggressive. Holy Freeze was removed prior to product release and replaced with Might in order to speed up the removal of malicious monsters.

As a special bonus, Decoy is available at the low cost of 1 hard point in order to predict the future. All you need do is run the program at times of trouble/uncertainty to ascertain if Kindle is about to come across a potential threat/crash.

Strengths
Detecting forward threats -- Run Decoy application before entering new site.
Hugely enjoyable
not a lot else

System Limitations
Unbelivablely fragile
Slow at progressing.
Decoy needs to be launched constantly
Mercernay program needs reset a lot.
Useless at running anything

So buy now in any off the following colours

Blue , Silver, Green and now, a limited edition one-off Black.




Reviews 1*

I bought this product as a guardian and two hours later it stopped working with loss of all data!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How am i supposed to know that the Fire Archers with multishot were backed up by convition Infedels? I want my items back. GIEB!!!!!!!!!
 
Originally posted by Sidhe on Jan 29, 2006:

1.09 Guardian Ruby

I'm currently trying to make a 1.09 HC Septivarite, among other septivarites. People who know me, or remember me, know that I'm quite good at planning but not that good at executing the planned... Anyway, 1.09 HC Septivarite. All the chars have gem-names, and though Sorceress Topaz was the first to set out, designated to become the sept's MF-er, Amazon Ruby beat her to the finish, defeating Hell Baal at level 72. Ok, 1.09 might be easier than 1.10 or 1.11, but still I'm proud to present Guardian Ruby!

Thanks to Meph kindly dropping a Buriza during one of Topaz's NM MF-runs, Ruby could become a quite standard Burizon or Cheesyzon. If not for the Buri, NM would have been Hell, and Hell would have been neigh Impossible, the next best bow I have being Skystrike.

All in all the game went smoothly, none of the difficulties being very difficult. Although Hell was somewhat harder, mainly due to low defense, hardly any blocking, and negative resistances. I must admit I've hit the Escape button a few times. 1.09 MSLE anyone? Also tricky were the Immune to Physical pack bosses with "nice" extra mods as Lightning Enchanted, hurty Aura Enchanted, combined with Stone Skin/Extra Strong, especially the little jumpy or running ones. Lucky for me though, the Ancients spawned with no nasty mods at all, and neither did any of Baal's Minions. Actually, I think I've never had so much luck with monster spawning as with Ruby.

What made this HC adventure more challenging than HC should be, were the escapades of my mouse: it seems to have a life of it's own, making the pointer fly every which way whenever it possibly can, which in turn moves the char in unintended directions, or makes the game fold to desktop (I play in a window). Yes, definitely time for a new one!

Ruby's further career will exist of Cow runs for leveling and Hell MF-runs, since none of the other chars is up to that yet.

I'll leave off any more writing, and will end with the statistical part of this story, in part extracted from the ATMA dump file I made right after killing Baal:

Character name: Ruby
Character type: Hardcore Amazon
Character level: 72
Character exp: 362923512

Stat Points:
Strength: 110
Dexterity: 175
Vitality: 150
Energy: 15

Life: 933 / 642
Mana: 163 / 121
Stamina: 285 / 285

Bow and Crossbow Skills:
Multiple Shot: 5
Guided Arrow: 20
Freezing Arrow: 1

Passive and Magic Skills:
Valkyrie: 20
Critical Strike: 10
Penetrate: 10
Pierce, Dodge, Avoid, Evade: 1

Including prereqs, Skill Points spent: 76
Skill Points remaining: 7

Gear:
Weapon: Buriza-Do Kyanon (socketed with Shael)
Helm: Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest
Armor: Duriel's Shell
Belt: String of Ears
Gloves: Sander's Taboo
Boots: Sander's Riprap
Amulet: Angelic Wings
Rings: Angelic Halo, rare ring

Mercenary:
Leheras, Nightmare Act 2 -- Offensive
Level 72 at becoming Guardian

Mercenary Items :
Weapon: Blackleach Blade
Helm: Guillaume's Face
Armor: Shaftstop

Notable Finds:

Rune Hold
Ring

Required Level: 51
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 59
Fingerprint: 0xd2ddd2de
+8 to Life
+116 to Attack Rating
+7 to Minimum Damage
Fire Resist +6%
Lightning Resist +15%
Cold Resist +6%
Poison Resist +6%

Toxic Large Charm of Anthrax
Required Level: 38
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 61
Fingerprint: 0xd79c7622
+269 poison damage over 10 seconds
 
Originally posted by skunkbelly on Jan 5, 2008:

Guardian Skunkstring

Introducing Guardian Skunkstring, the strafer. She's my 15th guardian, and my first real SP bowzon... and wow, was she fun and fast. How fast? Well, I started this character exactly 8 days ago... and while some time off and a stomach flu provided some extra playing time, I'd guess my total time from start to finish was as low as 15 hours. That's not Nightfish fast, but she's certainly the fastest guardian I've ever made.

She's basically your typical, cookie-cutter witchyzon. I was easily able to hit the 8/2 breakpoint with strafe, using Treachery, LoH, two 15% IAS/resistance jewels, and Highlord's Wrath (that actually put me 10% over, but no big deal). Her only real troubles were gloams and physical immune critters, but the CtC Amp from the Witchwild String broke every physical immune we encountered (the magic arrows from the WWS seemed to help only against the wimpiest hell monsters, like but swarms). Her other problem was AR... but by using charms, I was able to keep her CtH up around 70-80% in late hell, which isn't terrible.

Things started to get genuinely interesting in act 5, of course. The Frozen River was awful... gloams abounded, including three boss packs right near Anya's platform. But caution defeated them. The Ancients were a wildly lucky roll... two FE/LE, and one magic resistant/CE. None PI. It was over fairly quickly. WSK1 was uneventful as well. WSK2, on the other hand, was a nightmare. Gloams and pit vipers. WSK3 wasn't much better, with PI spectres and lots of Oblivion Knights. The Throne, on the other hand, wasn't that bad... witches, Pit Lords and Death Lords. All of the Minions went done fast, though Ventar's pack managed to curse and kill my merc rather quickly. Baal also managed to kill my merc quickly, but once we came back, the Kelpie, CB and Amp combo made short work of him.

Drops? A few decent things along the way, most notably a Raven Frost and a Wizardspike. Forges were Lum (NM) and Io (Hell). I hate it when the hell HF reward is lower than the NM reward :rant:

Skills:

20 in Strafe
20 in Valk
1 in Guided Arrow (used a lot, actually)
8 Decoy
20 Penetrate
11 Pierce (I originally planned to swap out Razortail for T'Gods, so this was a little high)
5 in Critical Strike

Not sure about her future... I'm thinking she might make a good rune-hunter, despite her bad luck with the forge :rolleyes:

Gear, etc.:

Character name : Skunkstring
Character type : Hardcore Amazon
Character level : 82
Character exp : 814505762

Strength : 85
Energy : 15
Dexterity : 207
Vitality : 193
Stat Points Rem : 0
Skill Points Rem: 0

Life : 994 / 791
Mana : 258 / 136
Stamina : 365 / 338

Gear:

Razortail
Sharkskin Belt
Defense: 107
Durability: 14 of 14
Required Strength: 20
Required Level: 32
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 75
Fingerprint: 0x20f15115
+15 to Dexterity
+149% Enhanced Defense
+10 to Maximum Damage
+15 Defense
Piercing Attack [33]
Attacker Takes Damage of 82 (Based on Character Level)

Raven Frost
Ring
Required Level: 45
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0xc79778ba
+17 to Dexterity
+40 to Mana
+249 to Attack Rating
Adds 15-45 cold damage over 4 seconds
20% Cold Absorb
Cannot Be Frozen

Doom Eye
Ring
Required Level: 34
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 60
Fingerprint: 0xcf88560
+7 to Strength
+17 to Maximum Stamina
+4 to Maximum Damage
Magic Damage Reduced by 1
Fire Resist +27%
Lightning Resist +30%

War Traveler
Battle Boots
Defense: 137
Durability: 48 of 48
Required Strength: 95
Required Level: 42
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x7658dd6
+10 to Strength
+10 to Vitality
+187% Enhanced Defense
+15 to Minimum Damage
+25 to Maximum Damage
+30 Maximum Durability
Attacker Takes Damage of 6
32% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
25% Faster Run/Walk
40% Slower Stamina Drain

Laying of Hands
Bramble Mitts
Defense: 80
Durability: 12 of 12
Required Strength: 50
Required Level: 63
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xf32267d4
+25 Defense
Fire Resist +50%
20% Increased Attack Speed
350% Damage to Demons
10% Chance to cast Level 3 Holy Bolt on striking

Highlord's Wrath
Amulet
Required Level: 65
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x7e569c30
Lightning Resist +35%
Adds 1-30 lightning damage
20% Increased Attack Speed
+1 to All Skill Levels
Attacker Takes Lightning Damage of 15
30% Deadly Strike (Based on Character Level)

Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest
Death Mask
Defense: 125
Durability: 20 of 20
Required Strength: 55
Required Level: 66
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xfc45a251
+98 to Life
+30 to Mana
+45 Defense
All Resistances +15
10% Life stolen per hit
10% Mana stolen per hit
Socketed (1: 1 used) (Perfect Ruby)

Treachery
Mage Plate
'ShaelThulLem'
Defense: 230
Durability: 60 of 60
Required Strength: 55
Required Level: 43
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 79
Fingerprint: 0x8cd04a4f
Cold Resist +30%
50% Extra Gold from Monsters
+2 to Assassin Skill Levels
45% Increased Attack Speed
20% Faster Hit Recovery
25% Chance to cast Level 15 Venom on striking
5% Chance to cast Level 15 Fade when struck
Socketed (3: 3 used)

Skunkstring's Witchwild String
Diamond Bow
Two-Hand Damage: 89 to 108
Required Dexterity: 132
Required Strength: 89
Required Level: 61
Bow Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x15768477
+170% Enhanced Damage
Fire Resist +40%
Lightning Resist +61%
Cold Resist +68%
Poison Resist +40%
Required Level +7
30% Increased Attack Speed
Fires Magic Arrows
2% Chance to cast Level 5 Amplify Damage on striking
82% Deadly Strike (Based on Character Level)
Socketed (2: 2 used)

Ambergris Jewel of Fervor
Required Level: 31
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 63
Fingerprint: 0x7a0ea33f
Lightning Resist +21%
15% Increased Attack Speed

Sapphire Jewel of Fervor
Required Level: 31
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 71
Fingerprint: 0x36566854
Cold Resist +28%
15% Increased Attack Speed



Mercenary Items :

Guillaume's Face
Duriel's Shell
Kelpie Snare
Bone Hew (Amn/Shael)
 
Originally posted by @b1ur on Mar 19, 2013:

Guardian Alice - WWS Strafer.. at least for the time being

Guardian #2

nbWUfRd.jpg

Possibly the safest character to play. Even safer than a Fishy... I managed to kill one in SC in the Mausoleum Hell while trying to see how far can I go without dying and playing single-pass full clears. It was just before I started playing HC. This gal... With some semi decent gear which I barely have is immortal. Seriously. If you don't do something incredibly stupid you're never gonna die... I gotta say I'm truly impressed how strong and fun Strafers are. I gotta also admit I've never played one before. All the zons I've played back in the days of Bnet were either Javazons or PvP Bowazons (GA+MS). I kinda regret this.

Stats
Name:
Alice
Class: Amazon
Experience: 764738242
Level: 81

Naked/Gear
Strength:
70/124
Dexterity: 300/352
Vitality: 100/132
Energy: 15/27

Unspent: 10

HP: 490/741
Mana: 135/296
Stamina: 244/244
Defense: 75/690
AR: 1470/2216 --> LCS says 7645

Fire: 166/126/66
Cold: 189/149/89
Lightning: 187/147/87
Poison: 160/120/60

MF: 150
GF: 115
FR/W: 28
FHR: 0
IAS: 40
FCR: 10

Skills

Strafe, Valkyrie, Penetrate - 20
Critical Strike - 5
Decoy, Pierce - 3
Freezing Arrow - 1 (almost never used)
All other Passive and Prereq's - 1

Unspent: 10

All skills
Magic Arrow: 1/3
Fire Arrow: 0/0
Cold Arrow: 1/3
Multiple Shot: 1/3
Exploding Arrow: 0/0
Ice Arrow: 1/3
Guided Arrow: 1/3
Strafe: 20/22
Immolation Arrow: 0/0
Freezing Arrow: 1/3

Inner Sight: 1/3
Critical Strike: 5/7
Dodge: 1/3
Slow Missiles: 1/3
Avoid: 1/3
Penetrate: 20/22
Decoy: 3/5
Evade: 1/3
Valkyrie: 20/22
Pierce: 3/5

Gear

Weapon:
Up'd 150%ED Witchwild String [2xShael]
Switch: Gnarled Staff of Teleportation
Armor: 'Lionheart' Mage Plate
Helm: Harlequin's Crest [Perfect Topaz] Stolen from my sorcy due to lack of a better one
Gloves: Cleglaw's Pincers
Belt: Razortail
Boots: 38%MF War Traveler Also stolen from my sorcy due to lack of another pair
Amulet: Rare (see readouts)
Ring1: Ravenfrost Dropped from an urn in the CVT Hell
Ring2: Rare dual leech (see readouts)


Readouts + Inventory
Cleglaw's Pincers
Chain Gloves
Defense: 9
Durability: 16 of 16
Required Level: 4
Required Strength: 25
Fingerprint: 0x2d65f771
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Slows Target by 25%
Knockback
Set (2 items): +810 to Attack Rating (Based on Character Level)




Boreal Small Charm Of Sustenance
Small Charm
Required Level: 58
Fingerprint: 0xa8b53754
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Adds 7 - 14 Cold Damage Over 1 Secs (25 Frames)
+11 to Life


Eagle Touch
Ring
Required Level: 46
Fingerprint: 0xa0d08ff8
Item Level: 83
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+102 to Attack Rating
5% Mana stolen per hit
5% Life stolen per hit
Cold Resist +29%
5% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items


Lionheart
Mage Plate
HelLumFal
Defense: 229
Durability: 60 of 60
Required Level: 41
Required Strength: 47
Fingerprint: 0xa71d317
Item Level: 69
Version: Expansion 1.10+
20% Enhanced Damage
All Stats +10
+15 to Strength
+5 to Dexterity
+10 to Vitality
+50 to Life
All Resistances +30
Requirements -15%
3 Sockets (3 used)
Socketed: Hel Rune
Socketed: Lum Rune
Socketed: Fal Rune


Hel Rune
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: Requirements -20%
Armor: Requirements -15%
Shields: Requirements -15%


Lum Rune
Required Level: 37
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: +10 to Energy
Armor: +10 to Energy
Shields: +10 to Energy


Fal Rune
Required Level: 41
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: +10 to Strength
Armor: +10 to Strength
Shields: +10 to Strength


War Traveler
Battle Boots
Defense: 137
Durability: 48 of 48
Required Level: 42
Required Strength: 95
Fingerprint: 0x64b10b0a
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+25% Faster Run/Walk
Adds 15 - 25 Damage
+186% Enhanced Defense
+10 to Strength
+10 to Vitality
40% Slower Stamina Drain
Attacker Takes Damage of 9
38% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+30 Maximum Durability


Coral Small Charm of Good Luck
Small Charm
Required Level: 33
Fingerprint: 0x9bf794f9
Item Level: 61
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Lightning Resist +9%
6% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items


Coral Small Charm of Life
Small Charm
Required Level: 20
Fingerprint: 0x4a9695e5
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+9 to Life
Lightning Resist +8%


Harlequin Crest
Shako
Defense: 127
Durability: 11 of 12
Required Level: 62
Required Strength: 50
Fingerprint: 0x47e2c6ed
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to All Skills
All Stats +2
+121 to Life (Based on Character Level)
+121 to Mana (Based on Character Level)
Damage Reduced by 10%
74% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Perfect Topaz


Perfect Topaz
Required Level: 18
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: Adds 1 - 40 Lightning Damage
Armor: 24% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Shields: Lightning Resist +40%


Beast Gorget
Amulet
Required Level: 50
Fingerprint: 0xce86a40e
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+10% Faster Cast Rate
+17 to Strength
All Resistances +18
Fire Resist +6%
Damage Reduced by 1


Shimmering Grand Charm of Shock
Grand Charm
Required Level: 27
Fingerprint: 0xcf619bc6
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Adds 1 - 3 Lightning Damage
All Resistances +14


Shimmering Grand Charm
Grand Charm
Required Level: 27
Fingerprint: 0x5620c48b
Item Level: 55
Version: Expansion 1.10+
All Resistances +15


Large Charm of Vita
Large Charm
Required Level: 50
Fingerprint: 0x756f4fd1
Item Level: 83
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+26 to Life

Razortail
Sharkskin Belt
Defense: 100
Durability: 14 of 14
Required Level: 32
Required Strength: 20
Fingerprint: 0xb9c7a5fb
Item Level: 62
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Piercing Attack
+10 to Maximum Damage
+130% Enhanced Defense
+15 Defense
+15 to Dexterity
Attacker Takes Damage of (Based on Character Level) 81


Large Charm of Vita
Large Charm
Required Level: 50
Fingerprint: 0xb908bdbb
Item Level: 83
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+27 to Life


Raven Frost
Ring
Required Level: 45
Fingerprint: 0x1869e2b0
Item Level: 82
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+238 to Attack Rating
Adds 15 - 45 Cold Damage Over 4 Secs (100 Frames)
+20 to Dexterity
+40 to Mana
Cold Absorb 20%
Cannot Be Frozen


Toxic Small Charm of Inertia
Small Charm
Required Level: 55
Fingerprint: 0x8bb424a4
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+3% Faster Run/Walk
Adds 100 Poison Damage Over 5 Secs (125 Frames)


Gheed's Fortune
Grand Charm
Required Level: 62
Fingerprint: 0xbfc70ada
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
115% Extra Gold from Monsters
Reduces all Vendor Prices 10%
27% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items


Fine Small Charm
Small Charm
Required Level: 21
Fingerprint: 0x62be4752
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Maximum Damage
+17 to Attack Rating


Iron Small Charm of Good Luck
Small Charm
Required Level: 33
Fingerprint: 0xd88e3f50
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+17 to Attack Rating
6% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items


Lapis Grand Charm of Vita --> Stashed, dropped in Hell WSK I think
Grand Charm
Required Level: 69
Fingerprint: 0x110d2109
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+37 to Life
Cold Resist +20%


Shimmering Grand Charm
Grand Charm
Required Level: 27
Fingerprint: 0x441622e4
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
All Resistances +13


Gnarled Staff of Teleportation
Gnarled Staff
Two Hand Damage: 4 - 12
Durability: 35 of 35
Required Level: 24
Fingerprint: 0xc471c2b5
Item Level: 28
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to Fire Ball (Sorceress Only)
Level 1 Teleport (13/33 Charges)


Fine Grand Charm of Life
Grand Charm
Required Level: 16
Fingerprint: 0x66a316dc
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+4 to Maximum Damage
+32 to Attack Rating
+7 to Life


Sharp Grand Charm of Winter
Grand Charm
Required Level: 21
Fingerprint: 0x31112c12
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+9 to Maximum Damage
+51 to Attack Rating
Adds 4 - 11 Cold Damage Over 1 Secs (25 Frames)


Fine Grand Charm of Frost
Grand Charm
Required Level: 16
Fingerprint: 0xbda18379
Item Level: 68
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+5 to Maximum Damage
+46 to Attack Rating
Adds 1 - 2 Cold Damage Over 1 Secs (25 Frames)


Amber Small Charm
Small Charm
Required Level: 32
Fingerprint: 0x5644a26c
Item Level: 57
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Lightning Resist +10%


Key
Fingerprint: 0x42cffb26
Item Level: 12
Version: Expansion 1.10+


Witchwild String
Diamond Bow
Two Hand Damage: 82 - 100
Durability: 39 of 40
Required Level: 61
Required Strength: 89
Required Dexterity: 132
Fingerprint: 0x50513889
Item Level: 59
Version: Expansion 1.10+
2% Chance to cast level 5 Amplify Damage on striking
+40% Increased Attack Speed
Fires Magic Arrows
150% Enhanced Damage
81% Deadly Strike (Based on Character Level)
All Resistances +40
Required Level +7
2 Sockets (2 used)
Socketed: Shael Rune
Socketed: Shael Rune


Shael Rune
Required Level: 29
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: +20% Increased Attack Speed
Armor: +20% Faster Hit Recovery
Shields: +20% Faster Block Rate


Shael Rune
Required Level: 29
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: +20% Increased Attack Speed
Armor: +20% Faster Hit Recovery
Shields: +20% Faster Block Rate

Mercenary

Haseen, Act II Might

Gear
Weapon: 214%ED nonETH Reapers Toll
Armor: Duriel's Shell
Head: Stealskull
Stealskull
Casque
Defense: 229
Durability: 14 of 24
Required Level: 35
Required Strength: 59
Fingerprint: 0x56b3775c
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+10% Increased Attack Speed
+10% Faster Hit Recovery
5% Mana stolen per hit
5% Life stolen per hit
+214% Enhanced Defense
48% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items


Duriel's Shell
Cuirass
Defense: 675
Durability: 31 of 150
Required Level: 41
Required Strength: 65
Fingerprint: 0xef6f59
Item Level: 59
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+183% Enhanced Defense
+101 Defense (Based on Character Level)
+15 to Strength
+81 to Life (Based on Character Level)
Cold Resist +30%
All Resistances +20
Cannot Be Frozen
+100 Maximum Durability


The Reaper's Toll
Thresher
Two Hand Damage: 37 - 442
Durability: 58 of 65
Required Level: 75
Required Strength: 114
Required Dexterity: 89
Fingerprint: 0x10d5d8c0
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
33% Chance to cast level 1 Decrepify on striking
214% Enhanced Damage
Ignore Target's Defense
Adds 4 - 44 Cold Damage Over 1 Secs (27 Frames)
15% Life stolen per hit
33% Deadly Strike
Requirements -25%

The Journey

When I started her she was meant to be a single-pass full clear Medusa Strafer. But... I got a bit bored of full clears, was missing a Vex for the Silence bow which is basically essential for the build and she became a pure Strafer. Oh, well...

Equipped full Arctic set somewhere about level 9 and that got me through Act I (full clear) & II (not so much). Somewhere in late Act III I equipped Riphook and Manald Heal which pretty much solved all my mana problems with Strafe. Shoot. Stuff dies. Nightmare was pretty much the same thing. That's when I equipped WWS which was later upgraded. And yet again. Shoot. Stuff dies. Cake walk.

Got to Hell. Finally. Act I Hell - /p3, stuff dies. Nothing interesting really. When I finished the Smith-Horadric-Maul-whatever-this-quest-is-called I made a MP game and opened a TP in the Catacombs with another character. I hate the Jail. Andy was kinda tough on /p3. Killed my merc and a dozen of Valks.

Act II. /p3. Stuff still dies. A bit slower but dies. Pul dropped somewhere in the Sewers. My best drop -.- PI Dark Elder took awhile. Eventually died. Oh, wait forgot about the 238/20 Ravenfrost from an Urn in the CVT ^^. PI Ghosts in the Arcane Sanctuary gave me a hard time. But when Amp triggered they died in a heartbeat. I kinda love this screenshot. Green Amp'ed Ghosts look awesome! Fangskin gave me bit of a scare, thankfully the valk outlasted him as I was almost pressed against the entrance. Also a NDE in the Lost City got surrounded by 4 boss packs (don't ask how!) one of which had Holy Freeze so I S&E. I probably would have survived because I had 7 Full Juvies in the belt but didn't wanna risk it. Nothing else interesting really.

Act III. /p1 bnet style. (I hate this whole act. Well maybe minus LK and Travincal.) Travincal WP opened by the sorc. Killed the Councils, Durance of Hate WP opened by the sorc. Cheating!!! After that I went back for the Lam Esen Tome. 2 awful NDE's in the Durance. Against Dolls of course. I'm just happy I got out of there alive. Both times I was around 50hp. Well maybe this build has it's weakness after all. And all this with 50+FR and 10%DR. Yikes!

Act IV. /p1 due to lack of damage. Fun as always. Bad, wimpy monster rolls tho. Spawners, Afflicted (not sure how the Act IV type is named), Abyss Knights (again can't recall the outdoor area ones names), the corpse spitter ones and Pit Lords. Easy. Boring! RoF had it's nasty critters but I never even got in range of the Conviction. Hell Forge was a bitter disappointment. Decided to take on the Chaos Sanctuary on /p3. I love this place how can I not :) Easy. A bit slower but easy.

For Act V I received some WP help from my sorcy one last time. Killed Shenk, did 5-6 Eldrich runs in hopes to level up. Crystalline Passage had wimpy monster rolls, so as Frozen river no problems there. Ancient's way had nothing too challenging as well.

Aaaaand I got up to a challenge, finally. I threw a Decoy between the alter and Madawc, clicked the alter and 3 seconds later my merc, my valk and my decoy were all dead. That's some very nasty rolls I thankfully didn't even take a look at. I only saw the valk being Amp'ed. The second try they were the wimpiest rolls I've ever seen. Teleportation Mana Burn Talic, CE/Something Korlic, FE/LE Madawc that I could tank myself.

WSK was clear of souls. Good thing because I forgot to bring my TGod. Easy clears. One nasty Death Lord pack gave me a scare tho. Very few monsters can get to you even when you're extra careful and this is one of them. Cold damage + Knockback + 25% Slow is nothing to laugh at.
Decoy preventing knockback on the valk while I kill Lister's pack. Who btw was PI. 3+ minutes of Strafing and a trip for arrows were needed. 2% CtC Amplify Damage is kinda low. And the merc died so I showed him the finger. He was a walking aura anyway.

Baal was... annoying. Even with all the slowing he managed to kill my merc 5-6 times. Moron. I guess being so low level has a say in it tho. Slowly (because I'm dumb and forgot to bring CB gear for the merc mainly) I brought him down. The drop was... as all other 14 Act bosses I've killed... let's call it sub-optimal.

Finds

As mentioned above - very, very few worth mentioning. 238/20 Ravenfrost and a Pul rune really are the standouts. Also some socketables (that I seriously lack): 4os Monarch, 4os eth Cryptic Sword, 5os Berserker Axe and a 4os Great Bow.

Future Plans and Thoughts

As I already said I love this build. Safe, with some decent equipment very powerful as well. Most of the time the Valkyrie stayed in the front while I shot non stop and the moron of course stayed right next to me doing nothing but providing the Might Aura. One of the reasons I didn't go for a Holy Freeze Merc.

I plan to run the Pits for awhile. When I get up to some better equipment also the Act V caves and Red Portal areas and the CS. Love these places and this build has a very good potential there.

And I wouldn't mind some help with the rest of the skill points. I'm wavering weather I put them in Dodge/Avoid or in Decoy. I'm not really sure which one would be better - a sturdier Valk or better chance to Dodge/Avoid.

And btw; I want to test this with a Windforce. It should be beyond awesome!

Small text; I'm sorry for the typos and the nonsense some of the stuff probably makes. : )
 
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