Meet the Rune Finders – 2021 Spring RFL

@DaveWThe2nd All explained here. He is named after a book character, apparently he lost the middle finger of his left hand in the battle of Carleon (I had to look that up :)). Highly recommend reading if you are into fantasy books.
 
Litas worked the Arcane Sanctuary for sixteen hours in RFL round 3, and got well into level 89 in the process. I dressed her up a little differently to run AS in round 3:

  • Blackhorns Face unique death mask,
  • Tal Rasha's Guardianship set lacquered plate,
  • Thundergod's Vigor unique war belt
The rest of her gear was the same as when she herded cows in round 1. Her trusty guard Jemali also got a new toy to play with: an Arioc's Needle unique hyperion spear. Litas experimented with different /player settings. Although /p7 made each run take quite a bit longer, it also seemed to make a lot more runes drop per run (on average). She handled most of the round at either /p5 or /p7. Unfortunately, her highest find was a fal rune.

I was getting discouraged at Litas' lack of rune drops, so between some of her runs, an aggregate of four hours were spent in /players 1 pits, run by Noxio the poison necromancer:
  • rare death mask (+32 life, lightning and fire resists),
  • Skin of the Vipermagi unique serpentskin armor
  • rare sharkskin belt (cold, lightning, and poison resists),
  • Trang-Oul's Claws set heavy bracers,
  • rare heavy boots (+20% FRW, +40 mana, poison resists, half freeze duration)
  • rare amulet (+1 necromancer skills, +13 dexterity, +16 all resists)
  • rare rings (combined +67 mana and various resists)
  • Blackbog's Sharp unique cinquedas and a rare fetish trophy with +2 Poison Nova and +48 all resists (switch I)
  • magic wand and preserved head, each with +3 Bone Armor
His guard Mizan used a Stealskull unique casque, Iron Pelt unique trellised armor, and an ethereal Hone Sundan socketed with two shael runes and one amn. Noxio had a great map with the pit entrance pretty close to the monastery gate. Even so, I don't yet play well enough to run pits with him at any setting higher than /p2. He didn't get any high runes either, but he did manage to advance to level 87.

Again, thanks for hosting this year's RFL, @PhineasB !
 
I ran Arcane Sanctuary with a Nova Sorceress, and managed to get third place (in 3rd round that is). ~1150 runs in 19 hours.

Build
20 in Nova, Lightning Mastery, Warmth, Shiver Armor
11 in Static Field, 2 in Teleport, 5 unspent.

151 in Strength, 24 in Energy, rest in Vitality.

Weapon - HoTo+Spirit/CTA+Spirit
Armor - Upped Vipermagi 'Um'
Helm - Griffon's 'Um'
Gauntlets - Upped Frostburn
Boots - Upped Infernostride
Belt - Arachnid Mesh
Jewelry - SoJ/1.07 MPK ring and Mara's
A couple of skillers, rest life/mana/defense .

Merc was a defense one, wearing Infinity/Duriel's/Vampire's Gaze.

She had about 2k hit points, 1k mana and 10k Defense (with merc aura, which at times can be unreliable). Very safe, which is required when teleporting into the middle of large enemy packs. I still managed to die a couple of times, always to Amp+Auras.

Very fun and action packed character. The Arcane Sanctuary itself seems to be a very good place to find runes.
 
Ran Countess/Summoner/Nihlathak with my Min-Maxed ES Lightning Sorc. She's the first build to ever use my Infinity merc setup, and the one responsible for my only Jah drops up until now (2 within a space of 24 hours). Ran all 3 areas at p1 (don't want to be bothered changing every time). She's also a little squishy at higher player settings, given that without prebuff, ES absorb is only at around 77% instead of the full 95%.

Equipment
Helm - Griffon's (Facet)
Body - Lightning Ormus (Facet)
Belt - Arach's
Gloves - Trang's
Boots - Rare

Beast Spur
Mesh Boots
Defense: 42
Durability: 15 of 16
Required Level: 39
Required Strength: 65
Fingerprint: 0x7c93c601
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+30% Faster Run/Walk
+34 to Mana
Fire Resist +40%
Poison Resist +33%
Poison Length Reduced by 25%
11% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items


Amulet - Rare

Doom Heart
Amulet
Required Level: 67
Fingerprint: 0x9ca79e59
Item Level: 93
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to Sorceress Skill Levels
+20 to Strength
All Resistances +14
Poison Length Reduced by 50%
26% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Ring1 - SOJ
Ring2 - SOJ

Weapon (Main)- Crescent Moon/Spirit
Weapon (Switch) - CTA/Spirit

Inventory - 8x Skillers/Cube/Portal Tome/Keys/Resist SCs

Merc - Might, Tals/Fort/Infinity
 
My 8.5 hours of Round 3 was run with my Blizz sorc, with a slight change in gear. I switched her out of 3-piece Tal Rasha and focused on Blizz damage:

'Heart of the Oak' Flail
'Spirit' Monarch
Nightwing's Veil (-3/+4 facet)
Ormus' Robes (+3 Blizzard with -3/+3 facet)
Mara's Kaleidoscope
Trang-Oul's Claws
Arachnid Mesh
Aldur's Advance
Dwarf Star
Ravenfrost

On Switch:
'Call to Arms' War Scepter (+3 BO)
'Spirit' Monarch

4 Cold Skillers, life & resist charms, leaving 2x4 inventory space open

Defiance Merc:
Andariel's Visage (Ral)
'Fortitude' Dusk Shroud
'Insight' Giant Thresher

Big thanks to @Pb_pal for providing a good chunk of what she ended up wearing this round!

I think Blizzard damage on LCS was around 8.5k-8.9k. With 1800 life post BO and the second to last Teleport breakpoint, things went more smoothly than I thought...after a couple of early deaths. Managed to average about 2m15s runs, would have been faster if I was more reckless, but I sometimes waited for Blizzards to clear some of the mobs out of my way before I targeted the ghosts. This was usually if the ghosts were in the middle of 3 to 4 packs of Balrogs/OKs.
 
For round 3, I ran my lvl 95 light sorc, Cyndane (named after a character in the Wheel of Time). As I have described elsewhere, I first tried out light sorc in arcane with what I thought of as full dmg gear, which included crescent moon, vipermagi, and a crafted amulet, and the runs were very uncomfortable and dangerous. I decided to go a different direction and go higher hp, higher res and have loved the character there since. And with griffons and infinity, I think this setup is actually higher dmg for ghosts anyways, so I was just gearing her wrong before haha.

Equipment
Helm - Griffons with facet (for -24/+14 total)
Amulet - Mara's (30@)
Weapon - Hoto (40@)
Body - Enigma
Shield - 35 Spirit
Gloves - Rare with resists and mf
Ring1 - Stone of jordan
Ring2 - Stone of jordan
Belt - Arachs
Boots - Silkweave
Charms - 7 light skillers, life/res scs, 1 fhr/res sc, 3x4 blank
Merc - Defiance, Andy's (ias/low ed), Fort, Infinity

Build is standard full lightning. I think I had 2 extra points due to not skilling teleport since using enigma and put them in warmth. I do take the time to cast frozen armor and bc, because I want to make the runs as comfortable as possible.

Video

Efficiency
I got 57.09s avg runtime, and was at 56.9 for most of the set, but started slacking in the last couple of hours. Needless to say, this is a HUGE improvement over my previous running with her, where I avg'd ~69s. I do check the middle platform and the end platform. It seems like its worth it to me since there are usually a decent number of ghosts there, but ofc it's tough to know for sure. What did you end up doing on that front this year @Nano?
 
Round 3 was the only round that I ran this year, and I went with my untwinked 99er Druid, Septimus. Standard gear for a Windy (summary below), except maybe the Bloodfist to hit 99 FHR breakpoint with HotO flail.

He ended up with high MF (382) due to not really needing slots for other things, with Cyclone Armor allowing barely positive-to-low negative resists and plenty of vita even when the Oak poofed, with BO helping on the mana front. If I had more skillers, he would not have used MF SCs, and a second +skill ring would replace the Nagelring if he had one.

Helm - Shako with pTopaz
Amulet - 2/9 caster amulet with little else of use
Weapon - Hoto (34@) / Spirit (35 FCR)
Switch - CtA (4 BO) / Spirit
Body - Enigma
Gloves - Bloodfist
Rings - SoJ and Nagel (30 MF)
Belt - Arachnid
Boots - War Traveler (33 MF)
Charms - 3 skillers, Gheeds, FHR/life/MF SCs
Merc - HF, Andy's (unsocketed), Treachery, Reapers (unsocketed)

This guy is super safe in the Pit, and I think he dropped below 1000 life only once across the ~28 hours. Mana burn is an annoyance, but I kept a row of mana pots and made sure to pick some up as I went. He could also safely drop one of the three rows of full purples for a second row of mana to avoid the stray time I emptied the mana pot slot and got mana burned before I could a mana pot up, but it was easy enough to use a purple.

Based on XP progress over 28.5 hours, he was just over 6M/hr, which is really slow. But I was the one who chose Pit runs over Baal :)
 
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@Luhkoh I went with the simple route, no middle or end platforms.

Round 3 runners:

Level 97 Sorceress - Blizzard - CS

Equipment:
Shako (Cham)
Death's Fathom (Ist)
Enigma Light Plate
Spirit Monarch
2/10 FCR Amulet with +52 Mana
2x 10 FCR Rings with +Life, +Mana, +Res
Dracul's Grasp
Arachnid Mesh
Rare Boots 30/10 w/ Res
5x Cold GCs w/ Life
5x Life SCs w/ FR
CTA/Spirit on switch

A2 Prayer Merc:
Andy's/Fortitude/Insight



Level 96 Amazon - LF Java - AS

Equipment:
Griffon's Eye (15% IAS)
Non-Eth Titan's (2 more in stash)
Enigma Light Plate
Spirit Monarch
Highlord's Wrath
Ravenfrost
10 FCR Ring
3/20 Gloves
Razortail
Silkweaves
5x Java GCs w/ Life
5x Life SCs w/ FR
CTA/Lidless on switch

A2 Might Merc:
Andy's/Fortitude/Infinity
 
Back to Ned the HC Hammerdin and the CS for me. I laid out my thoughts and theorycrafting path in this post fully,and more thoughts and gear notes in last year's MTR.

Basically, he's built as all HC chars should be; to NOT die.

Here's how his gear looks (same as last year) to trya nd accomplish that goal:

Crown of Ages (Ber+Vex)
Maras (25 res - best I've got in HC)
Hoto (40 res)/ 35fcr Spirit (40 all res Sacred Targe - again, best I've got in HC)
Enigma Archon Plate
Trangs Gloves
Arach
Hotspur (fully upgraded)
FCR/res ring and Dwarf Star

Hammer dmg: 11k

Life: ~3.1k after BO
Resistances: 95/75/75/75 (overstacked to 120/134/115/104) -> 40% FR after Conviction (for Infector).

Other stats:
FHR: 90% (needed 1 sc of balance to hit the 86% breakpoint)
DR%: 30%
Fabsorb%: 15%
MDR: 15

Merc: A2 Defiance
Andys
Fortitude
Insight eth Thresher (I tried Reapers but like this way better, it's a pure comfort decision)

I love him. He feels insanely durable and just this year had his first real NDE. So how about that not dying thing? So far so good:

bqGY9W4.jpg
 
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