After MFO and fulfilling the grail goal of 2021, it's about time to try to complete other goals.
ItsATrap has restarted her questing yesterday night, and has arrived without much difficulty (and helped by a big twinking replacing her Orange Tournament crafted gear) at Hell Harrogath, clvl 78.
She will be heading to Baal asap, maybe saving Anya still in case of interest for Pindle running and saving a resistance GC. Then it will be time for HocusPocus to complete the Sept as a Concentrate Barbarian.
Guardian sept now complete, and Murios' count is now over 2k.
Next task will be some progress with my UT99eresses, and get back to HammerMessiah's leveling in between to have a change.
As of now, restarted with my sorc Athena, and used her respec to be Blizzard based with Fireball beside. She jumped in into Nightmare, things are moving more slowly...still in Act 1 NM!
Edit: Athena is now 54, running NM Mephisto. Apart from a magefist gloves found on the path, she got two Pul runes which is nice, a Dwarf star, and a 2 sorc/20fcr rare orb with a bit of life and 60+ mana.
Two bases had been found for Insight, best roll had been 16 aura. No Spirit base yet.
If nothing of interest is found by lvl 56/57, she will move forward to unlock Hell, so Minerva will be able to quest again.
Edit: nothing really MAJOR found by lvl 56... as a consequence, she got through A4, grabbing an Um at the Hellforge, and hitting 57 in the CS.
Edit: Athena has now unlocked Hell, killing Baal shy to clvl 67, which had been hit with a couple of Pindle running before ending the session, which one saw her craft a 31fcr Spirit in a Broad sword while leveling at Pindle before Ancients.
It is now Minerva's turn to progress!
Edit: a quick session brought her to catacombs' waypoint in A1 NM. She will need to run some areas to unlock some crafts/runewords, her Poison speciality works somehow but her resistances are terrible...She hadn't been lucky at all with that yet. So she may run a bit of Countess, and try to find new boots (magical 30MF ones without FRW :-/).
Edit: Clvl 47, Act 1 NM is now complete, however she still ran the Countess until the end of the session. No Ko delivered, but well at least she could craft a Rhyme Bone shield (yep...), and found a nice 14allres/19MF magical amulet! She also kept 4 and 3os bows just in case, but no 4os polearm of any kind yet.
Selling a lot, it will soon be the time to gamble a bit for gloves and boots. And belt... well, one thing first, then we will see!
Edit: after a gambling session that netted a trires gloves with a 13MF, and a 30FRW boots with 11MF and dual res, Minerva completed her lvl 48 running Countess, with no other improvement. So it will be time to head to Act 2 and poison everything there...
Edit: after some thinking about Minerva's build to follow, she will go Lightning in NM, and add Freezing Arrow for Hell, with a strong enough Valkyrie. Plan will be as follows:
J&S: 15CS/20LF+5prereqs
P&M: 10Valk+9 "1pt everywhere"
=> Ok at clvl54 + early NM skill quests
Then build max Freezing arrow, with possibly a nice Melody bow or Wizendraw, +22pts
=> Ok at clvl 74 + NM skill quests
Edit: Minerva is now 53.5, still poisoning (apart from being kinda slow, there wasn't any issue with Plague javelin yet) but with a stronger Valkyrie, and arrived at LK. Only one camp, her map will be rerolled, so she will be able to build up her resistances for Hell if needed. Act 3 dropped Normal Insight bases (-_-), and one skiller already: plain Barb Masteries. Yay.
Hopefully she will complete her Nightmare journey by the end of the week.
Edit: now 55, at RoF waypoint. Hellforge had been a Lum - not that bad, either for a Ko to craft a Melody for Hell, or a Smoke armor.
Speaking of which, she found herself an ethereal 198ed Skullder's Ire. Pretty!
Edit: Since last time, merc hadn't been really put in use, as Valkyrie was so much stronger. No difficulty, poison monsters are usually slow, except for CS seal boss...nothing that can't be handled by a splitting and a Valkyrie. So here we are, Minerva is now Champ at clvl60 - ended session 61 with a few more Pindle runs! She kept focused on Poison until WSK 2, and at that point she used a respec to switch to Freezing Arrow - using a newly find Kuko Shakaku and Lightning Fury, with a big Valkyrie beside.
One last real goal for this year: HammerMessiah up to 97. Oh my...will be tough with D2R at the corner!
Due to available skills in Nightmare, over leveling will be a key of success.
Option 1
Nightmare shall be a Charge-through passage. Charge will not be synergized, only Fanaticism will help...it will be a straight questing p1 journey, counting on merc for most of the damage! No question about skipping physical immunes, therefore having painful times in some areas...
Code:
[53] The build - clvl 50+Normal skill quests
Fanaticism shall be maxed first, as the merc will be here again the strongest.
[13] Holy shield: 10+3 prereqs (not incl. Charge)
[23] Fanaticism: 20+3 prereqs
[17] Charge: -
IAS breakpoints: irrelevant
Much needed: Insight on merc! To be crafted asap in Nightmare
Hell will be another story...with a synergized Holy Shock, things can go pretty well with a Might merc beside. Smite is available as combat skill which is nice, but won't work with Holy Shock sadly. Could be working with Concentration still!
Another route could be followed with a slightly synergized Vengeance build...but it relies more on finding a great weapon to do so - and roll a great Insight. On top of that, no Conviction frees the aura, therefore using Defiance could build a huuuuge defense! However, given how the respec are available, it is not absurd to start with a build and end with the other one using Hell respec!
One point can be put into Vigor in order to get additional mobility too.
Code:
[82] The builds - clvl 75+N&NM skill quests
Holy shock build - starting build
[24] Holy Shield: 20+4 prereqs
[23] Holy Shock: 20+3 prereqs
[20] Resist Lightning: 20
[14] Defiance: 14
[01] Vigor: 1
Weapon of choice: Crescent moon "War Axe"
Damage:
Holy Shock 20: 1-916
+Resist lightning 20: +240%
IAS breakpoints: 10/20/40/65
Smiter build
[20] Smite: 20
[22] Concentration: 20+2prereqs
[23] Holy Shield: 20+3 prereqs (not inck. Smite)
[16] Defiance: 16
[01] Vigor: 1
Shield of choice: elite Zakarum shield with ED - eth Exile
Upped HoZ
IAS breakpoints: 15/30/50
Vengeance build - if a great weapon is met
[24] Holy Shield: 20+4 prereqs
[22] Vengeance: 20+2 prereqs
[20] Resist Lightning: 20
[15] Defiance: 15
[01] Vigor: 1
Weapon of choice: high ED rare/runeword Caduceus/Berserker Axe
IAS breakpoints: 10/20/40/65
Option 2
Nightmare shall be shocked by BleedRunner's march towards the victory...held by his merciless merc that could be helped when he is the one by some Concentration aura. This option let the possibility to find a better weapon for the Charge difficulty, while not being as hard to equip - Crescent moon runeword would be the top, but it implies some luck on the Um rune. A Holy Thunder War Scepter would be nice enough!
Also, as spotted in late Normal, where things were awful before dumping points in dexterity, AR without skill to boost is a really hard point...so the merc will have to be switched to Blessed aim/Offensive one before entering Nightmare.
Finally, Smite could be used if a Crushing blow weapon is crafted, that could help tremendously vs Baal and his last wave.
Code:
[53] The build - clvl 50+Normal skill quests
Concentration is for merc support vs lightning immunes.
Smite can be used with Concentration aura too, even if damage will rely on CB:
Gilded Shield with max bonus from HS: 77-88dmg, +165% from aura+1pt Smite
[23] Holy Shield: 20+3 prereqs (not incl. Smite)
[06] Concentration: 4+2prereqs
[23] Holy Shock: 20+3 prereqs
[01] Smite*
Holy Thunder: Eth Ral Ort Tal
IAS breakpoints: 10/20/40/65
Merc to be switched to Blessed Aim/Offensive Normal desert merc
Nightmare, and then Hell would then be a quest towards the highest damage weapon possible to use by a Fanatic Charger. Smite is available too, and could do wonders with some crushing blow (gloves to be crafted, alongside some nasty runeword on switch?) vs bosses. Not a bad road to follow!
For merc, Nightmare will have been run with AR aura. For Hell, skill is going to be used, so it won't be necessary there. A switch to Might or Holy Freeze can be done. Given the use of Fanaticism, Might wouldn't be as strong as it can be, so the safety and elemental damage from Holy Freeze shall be chosen for this last part of the journey.
Code:
[82] The build - clvl 75+N&NM skill quests
Balance has to be found between Holy Shield and Vigor...that's Hell, so probably defense first..? Build "fully" complete with +5 levels and 2 skill quests, afterwards everything can be dumped into Defiance.
[19] Holy shield: 16+3 prereqs (not incl. Charge)
[23] Fanaticism: 20+3 prereqs
[20] Charge: 20
[19] Vigor: 17+2 prereqs (not incl. Defiance)
[01] Defiance*
IAS breakpoints: irrelevant
Much needed: Insight on merc! To be crafted in Nightmare
D2R shared stash only.
Muling out allowed but items
not usable anymore by any
team member, except for
Torch/Anni in respect of
the existing sharing
limitation rule for those
items.
Given the fact that I would go for a Sept, I will add a personal first leveling mark at 90.
I'll try to go with some builds I never played in SC. Torch/Anni are not targeted, given the ruling of one-build-only it would lock them to then few builds, I don't consider it that fun. Could give a shot with the Smiter however.
Rich (BB code):
Class | Character name | Build | Lvl | Loop | M/Pat
Ama | ColdEsperanza | Frostmaiden | 00 | 00 | No
Assa | CrudEviscerator | DSKicker | 00 | 00 | No
Barb | CrazyEraser | Frenzy | 00 | 00 | No
Druid | ClawsEnhanced | FClawsGrizzly | 00 | 00 | No
Necro | CausesExplosion | CESummoner | 08 | 00 | No
Pal | ClunkEmitter | Smiter | 00 | 00 | No
Sorc | ClassicalExcess | StaticBlizzard | 00 | 00 | No
20 Raise skeleton
20 Skeleton mastery
01 Clay golem
01 Golem mastery
5+ Summon resist
5+ Amplify damage
1 Decrepify*
10 Corpse explosion
Weapon: White in curse wand (x/x/x Decrepify/Skeleton Mastery/Raise Skeleton
* if Decrepify not on wand
20 Fire claws
20 Fissure
20 Molten boulder
5+ Grizzly
01 Werebear
05 Lycanthropy
01 Heart of Wolverine?
Weapon: Steel in very fast weapon until 6-Shael PB
20 Smite
20 Holy Shield
20 Fanaticism
01 Redemption
Remaining in Sanctuary vs Undead
Weapon: Black/Crushing blow, until Grief
20 Dragon Talon
20 Death Sentry
20 Shadow Master
10 Fade
05 Burst of Speed
01 Cloak of Shadows
Weapon: Dual* Strength claws
Shield: Rhyme until Ravenfrost
Boots: Rare high damage/Goblin Toe until upped Gore Rider
[Copy from Balancing the Finds results for tracking]
Jah SC #04, Sur SC #09, Lo SC #05
Enigma #02 crafted with Ber SC#02 and Jah SC #04
Code:
Enigma
Superior Dusk Shroud
JahIthBer
Defense: 1282
Durability: 18 of 22
Required Level: 65
Required Strength: 77
Fingerprint: 0x404671fe
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to All Skills
+45% Faster Run/Walk
+1 to Teleport
+12% Enhanced Defense
+758 Defense
+60 to Strength (Based on Character Level)
Increase Maximum Life 5%
Damage Reduced by 8%
+14 Life after each Kill
15% Damage Taken Goes To Mana
80% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items (Based on Character Level)
Increase Maximum Durability 10%
3 Sockets (3 used)
Socketed: Jah Rune
Socketed: Ith Rune
Socketed: Ber Rune
Barbarian ShapeShifter timeline, aka barbarian twinking journey towards Wolfhowl
Gearing
Code:
No 0-6 whatever
6-15 Sigon set
15-30 Forwarded Ravenclaw
28 The Spirit Shroud
30+ Dual 1 Whirlwind/4 Sword mastery Bloodletters
41 Duriel's shell, Goblin toe (for Baal running)
42 Arreat's face
45 Raven frost
NM 47 Gore Rider
49 Oath Eth Highland blade main hand
58 BKWB, Rare amulet with ML and some resistances
59 Dual Grief PB
63 Fortitude Archon plate
64 Beast offhand
He 79 Wolfhowl, final charms setup
Act 5 Normal leveling
Code:
> Eldritch up to 37
> Pindle up to 40
> Baalruns up to 47
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