7 fresh Hardcore characters ready to grind it out.
Druid--Windy
Sorceress--BlizzBaller or Blizz-Meteor
Pally--FoHdin
Barb--Double Throw
Necro--Bone into possible PsN Nova??
Sin--Mosaic
Amazon--Poison into Lightning Fury
These will be the 7 characters to get me back going after the crash. All will be Untwinked, if any survive to level 90 then they will move to the UT-99er thread. Plan is to quest each one through normal, then reverse order through NM. Then each one to Hell Hellforge, then back to LK for rune grinding...then hell meph for gear...then finish up Hell for guardianship and move onto the 99 grind.
Hurricane-Syd up first and I didn't bother with many screenshots, just questing, and some re-running to gather smaller runes to survive. Syd has quested and leveled up to Hell Act 3 and level 80. Next up, push to LK for that slog of rune hunting again.
Corpsefire normal
Normal Baal down
first good MF find. Goldwrap.
Nightmare Shenk/Eldritch runs. Viper!!
Character Screenshot Hell Act 3. Spirit Sword, Rhyme, Iratha Helm, Viper, random rares, String of Ears from NM tower running. Random Charms.
So I just threw the "plan" out the window. I've been playing my druid Hurricane-Syd only. I haven't even thought about playing another character right now. I just really enjoy playing Druids. So Syd is up to lvl 87. I have ran 1,000 LK runs, 100 P3 Meph runs, a dozen or so P3 Chaos runs, and some Stony Tombs/Ancient tunnels here and there as well. Screenshots of the drops incoming.
First up LK.
Overall Rune Haul on a Mule (minus a Pul and Vex)
HoTo Craft
LK Charms
Meph Drops (228-267MF) Started with 228 then the Gheed's dropped to make it 267.
Chaos Drop
Character Screen with Oak Sage Active:
Current Gear at lvl 87:
Helm--Rare Circlet (7% Life Steal/18 STR/16 CR/45 LR/31 FR/16 PSN Res)
Amulet--+3 Elemental Skill/10% Lvl 3 Charge Bolt Struck
Weapon--36 All Res HoTo--Swap Tele Staff (33 charges)
Shield--Rhyme Grim Shield
Armor--28 All Res Viper
Gloves--Trang's Claw
Belt--String of Ears (14% DR)
Boots--Rare (30 FRW/20CR/5 LR/40 FR/25MF)
Ring 1--Rare (10FCR/44 AR/2 DEX/26 PSN Res/2 DR)
Ring 2--Rare (10FCR/72 AR/13 CR/Lvl 3 Fire bolt charges)
I probably should just finish Act 5 and make Guardian, then back to LK for runes to get Enigma, Fort (Could cube 2 Ohms to make the Lo), CtA (Could cube Lems, Puls, Ums, and Mals to get my Ist and still have a Mal to make CtA) Decisions, Decisions. Could Just run more LK to find each rune needed for those 2 runewords (CtA and Fortitude) cause I still got a lot LK left to find those Surs/Bers for Enigma.
Looking ahead at Uber gear, (Fury Build)...I still need to find Ribcracker, Highlord's, Drac's (I have Laying of Hands), Ravenfrost, Dungo's (T-god's found for Uber Meph already found), need to craft some blood rings for ring 2 (Almost have 50 Sols/P Rubies). I have a bunch of Max Dam/AR GCs and SCs pluse plenty of 19-20 lifer SCs already too.
End Game gear still needed: Jalal's, Enigma, CtA+Spirit, Arach's, War Travs (tri-res/30FRW/MF boots will work for now), Raven Frost, Mara's or 2/10+FCR Caster Amulet (Almost have 70 Rals/P-Ame ready for level 93 crafting)
Making fairly good progress already in the first 3 weeks of creating this character.
1 week later, lots of time off from work due to the terrible weather in the Midwest. (Missouri, USA). Update time for Hurricane-Syd. Syd made it through to Guardian, ran another 1,000 LK runs. (2,000 total now). Ran some TZs, Chaos, Andy, and 100 more Meph runs (200 total now). 50+ screenshots between them all. I will only highlight the top drops, plus the LK runes.
Last bit to becoming a Guardian.
Now up, the non-rune drops:
7 more Rune drops from LK. Still needing more runes to make Enigma though. Total runes so far (minus 1 Pul and 1 Vex for HoTo) 4 Pul, 4 Um, 4 Mal, 0 Ist, 2 Gul, 3 Vex, 2 Ohm, 0 Lo/Sur/Ber). No rune drops outside of LK yet either from TZs, Andy, or Meph.
Skillers found these past 1,000 LK runs are as follows:
Syd is currently at level 89.8, no major upgrades to gear. Rare Circlet change to a +2 Ele, 18 All res.
If anyone is wondering:
I run LK with Hustle armor, Cat's Eye Ammy, 30FRW boots, 3 7FRW GCs, and 8--3FRW SCs, for a total of 170FRW. Zoom Zoom. I could gamble some 40 FRW Boots, put 2 more 7FRW GC and 2-3FRW SCs to make it to 200FRW . For now though, I have a 3x4 block open in the inventory plus the cube also to stash stuff in. I have been picking up all GCs, SCs, Jewels, Gems, Rals, and Sols for now.
Still only 1 Elemental skiller, which is crazy to think seeing all the other skillers found or re-rolled. I am almost to 100 blood ring crafts, 100 caster amulet crafts to roll later on.
Another week down, another 1,000 LK runs down...Midwest weather is helping me get more playing time, but my bank account is not liking the short week paychecks. (Union Construction doesn't get paid if off work due to weather). Anyways, off to the drops...
Only 6 runes in this 1,000 runs. Longest drought between rune drops came in this batch (414 runs).
It was worth the wait of 414 runs, my highest rune drop so far...unless 5 more Sur or any Ber runes drop in the next 5-600 runs I will definitely be over the "average" runs it takes for Enigma.
Other drops that came during these runs were skillers, 1os Nat Armor (left on the ground), 2 Garbage rolled Gheed's (both left on the ground). I did run a few P1 Chaos runs to break up the LK grind. I found a Shiver Armor Ormus, Wraith Flight, Carrion Wind, and Horizon's Tornado in Chaos or from Diablo. Still needing 1 more Essence from Diablo for respecs coming up (hopefully) I get to make it to Ubers. I still have 2 respecs remaining from my playthrough, but I think I'll need 3 in total.
Once I get Enigma, I'll probably run P1 Baal til I get his essence. Then off to key farming.
I started DoubleTrouble over this past week as well to break up the LK grind of Hurricane-Syd. Doub is only in normal Act 2 with the cube in hand. He is leveling and playing strictly as a throw/double throw Barb. His 1 note worthy drop came in Dry Hills.
Blink Bats armor. He has stealth on for the FRW, but still a random unique to put in the stash for now.
A couple more weeks at the LK grind. Another 1,000 runs down. 4,000 total now...still no Enigma...This batch saw 12 runes of Pul+ drop. LK is giving up a lot runes, just not the right ones . I decided to look at the total runes and start making the lesser runewords needed. CtA, Fortitude and the new runeword, Flickering Flame, which is for the Fire Claw Werebear I plan on using for Mini-Ubers if Syd makes it that far. Then after those, next up was to pour all the runes towards Enigma, so the cube got its fair share of work.
Pre-Runeword Screenshot
Nice even Defense
Amazing Roll!
+3 Fire Claw, +2 Heart of Wolverine Sky Spirit Base
Cubing up 1st time--
2nd Cubing session= 1st Ber Rune for this character
Also made some progress on DoubleTrouble the Double Throw Barb in between LK runs.
Normal Meph=Lenymo...interesting...add it to the ongoing Sept Grail I'll be keeping track off.
Normal Diablo down next.
Missed the Baal fight, death and such screenshots. Next up a nice GC from Normal Terrorized Ancient Tunnels.
Armor Upgrade found in the Drifter Cavern while it was Terrorized in Normal.
Leveled to 51 while running TZs to max out another skill. Throw Mastery and BO are both maxed. 1 point wonders are Inc. Stamina, Inc. Speed, Iron Skin, Natural Res. Then Double Swing and Double Throw are both at 5 currently. Double Throw is the next skill to be maxed. Last will be Double Swing. Then fill in the rest of the points as needed, Natural Res. Find Item.
Nightmare Andy went down next. That's wear DoubleTrouble sits, Act 2 NM at level 53.
Noteable pieces of gear are Silks of Victor, 18 all res Amulet (crafted with P gems), 30FRW/22 FR boots (shopped at Elzix). Everything else is random magic and rare pieces.
Hurricane-Syd has done another 1,000 LK runs....still no Enigma... ...I can only sit here and wonder if this is the other end of the RNG...my pally before the crash got Enigma inside of 800 runs and here is Syd hitting 5,000 runs...RnG ...These runs netted another 7 runes. I decided to keep cubing up the runes as they drop...Syd now sits at 1 Sur and 1 Ber in total. I have been grabbing all the jewels, flawless Rubies and Amethysts, as well as Sols and Rals for a major crafting session once Enigma is completed. I have over 200 blood and caster crafts of each ready along with over 500 jewels to go with that stashed away on mules. Only thing I don't have stashed yet is the amulets/rings cause I won't get them til I can level Syd to 93.
Sur Rune
Rune Stash after 5,000 LK runes (minus the Runewords already made (CtA, Fortitude, Flickering Flame)
Hurricane-Syd came across an amazing Circlet also during all these LK runs. I nice upgrade.
I have been gambling rings and amulets with all the gold that has piled up over the LK runs. No good rings have come from it, but a few nice +2 Amulets have shown up. Plenty of plain +3 amulets but I don't screenshot those, just move them to a Mule for possible twinking characters down the road.
DoubleTrouble incoming...He has completed nightmare and ran a few NM TZs to get to level 80.
Nothing note worthy of screenshots except a NM Mephisto kill.
Onto the NM Diablo kill...
A nice plain WarCry skiller dropped early in Act 5 NM.
Running a few levels at Eldritch dropped a nice belt for DoubleTrouble
Questing along in the Crystalline Passage and a crazy rune drop happens. I posted it in the Item Find thread...GUL RUNE! The odds of this drop according to Maxroll is 1 in 75,116 from a Unique Ghost...no normal monster can drop it...
After that, straight questing through to Baal.
Terror Zones in NM was next to get leveled to 81...thanks again Eldritch.
Wizspike in NM? Ok.
After that DoubleTrouble hit 80 and off to Hell he goes. Entering Hell...gonna have to take it really slow. Shop some resist boots/gloves/belt...
Gear is as follows:
Armor--Silks of the Victor
Amulet--All res 18
Gloves--Sanders Taboo
Belt--Up'd Goldwrap
Boots--40FRW/14 Cold Res.
Ring 1--Rare 10FCR/60AR/31 Life/All res 7 19 Fire Res.
Ring 2--Rare 1 Max Dam/2 Energy/Rep Life 5/4 Mana/28 LR/5 MF
Inventory--Cube, ID Tome, TP Tome, 1 Warcry Skiller, random Max Damage/AR/Resist charms
Skills--Max Bo, Max Throw Mastery, Max Double Throw, 18 Double Swing, 1 Find Potion, 1 Find Item, 1 Inc. Stamina, 1 Inc Speed, 1 Iron Skin, 1 Natural Res. 1 Battle Command, 1 Bash, 1 Howl, 1 Shout
6,000 LK runs down now....I'm so over LK...my kids were gone for most of the weekend so I got as much time as I wanted to play...so close to like 16 hours or so I think I played over the weekend, plus 2-3 hours each night so far this week. These last 1,000 runs netted another 10 runes including Sur #2! Been cubing Ko,Fals, Lems into Puls and Ums and on up to try and help. Anything to get closer to that Enigma. Cubed up to a Ber and Sur already, and now dropping this Sur rune...leaves 1 Ber drop or 2 more Sur runes left....so close yet sooo far away still. Squeezed in an hour of TZ Act 2 sewers on P5 for a short break and got a 1 nice drop.
ITS OVER! ITS OVER! 6,320 runs later! After a 20 hour work shift on Thursday, off work Friday, 12 hour shift on Saturday, dinner with the wife and kids...I sat down to play some D2R and finally relax...20 runs into the LK session...
After completing this monumental task...I took off to farm Diablo for 1 more essence...check...Oh Rocky Waste/Stony tomb is Terrorized...good exp. Head there next.
So make Enigma at 8:07pm and then drop this at 9:26pm...this game is crazy and that's the reason I keep on playing.
I'll have to find something for this eventually. Until then, into the Rune Stash for Hurricane-Syd it goes.
Needing more mf? Sure. Low roll but none the less Syd's first War Trav's.
After this, it was off to Baal to farm him for 2 Essences to finish out making 2 Tokens for later if I ever need them. 1 down. 1 to go.
Hit a tired wall...never good to play HC when tired. Off to bed after that drop. Still need 1 more essence, then its off to farm Keys...21 sets for 7 torch runs...after the keys, Mephisto farming for last few gear pieces, then its off to NM Andy for SOJ hunting...Respec to Fury druid for the Anni Fight, stay fury for all the Ubers (decided not to go Bear for the Mini-Ubers)...that's the plan, but HC can always change that in one session.
Current Gear Setup after Enigma:
Armor--Enigma
Helm--Rare Circlet (2 Ele skill/30FRW/6 LS/All res 13 +53 CR
Amulet--Rare 2 Druid/19 life/All Res 15/PsN length Reduce 50%/23MF
Weapon--36 All Res HoTo
Shield--Stormshield Socketed with UM rune (1 socket quest used)
Swap--6/6/3 CtA +Spirit Monarch
Gloves--Trang Oul's
Belt--String of Ears (PDR 14%)
Boots--31MF War Trav's
Ring 1--Rare 10FCR/6 Dex/13 AR/All res 7 +33FR
Ring 2--Rare 10FCR/5 Min Dam/4 STR/18 Mana/29 LR
Inventory--Gheeds (93/14/39), 1 Ele Skiller, 43 Life GC, 40 Life GC, Assorted 7mf sc, res, 19-20 lifer SCs, Resists.
Character Screen with Advanced Stats showing with BO and Oak Sage
HUGE, HUGE, HUGE Update incoming! Hurricane-Syd farmed all the keys, farmed Hell Meph for 688 runs, ran some TZ Andy, TZ Meph, TZ Worldstone Keep, leveled to 93, Crafted 210 Blood Rings, Crafted 260 Caster Amulets, killed Uber Diablo for an Anni, killed all the Mini-Ubers, and killed Uber Trist 6 times! Screenshots and gear will follow.
Up First--Key Farming--21 Terror Keys in 224 runs--21 Hate Keys in 217 runs--21 Destruction Keys in 245 runs.
Drops while farming Keys--
All the Meph Drops (TZ and P3 Meph)
Andy Drops--
34 MF War Travs
Blood Ring Crafting--
Caster Crafting--
Anni Time--
Up Next. Mini-Ubers
Uber Tristram Next--
Torch IDs (6 out of 7 Torches...I had to bail on 1 attempt when I got surrounded by Diablo's Spawns trying to lead them away)
Druid Torch was the 2nd one to drop. Farmed the others for twink'd characters.
Ubers was run with a pure Fury Druid--Max Wolf, Lycanthropy, Feral Rage, Fury, Heart of the Wolverine. Pre reqs and the 2 left over points I just stuck in Werebear and Maul for fun.
Gear for Mini-Ubers and Ubers:
Helm-Jalal's Helm socketed with Um (Meph)/G-Face for Baal & Diablo
Amulet--Mara's (Meph & Diablo)/Atma's for Baal
Armor--Fortitude
Weapon--Up'd Ribcracker
Swap--6/6/3 CtA + Spirit
Gloves--Drac's
Belt--T-God's (Meph)/Dungo's
Boots--Gore Rider
Ring #1--Blood Ring (Dual Leech/4 STR/19 Life/All Res 9/Dam. Red. 2)
Ring #2--Rare Ring (7% LS/23 Life/11 CR/30 LR/16 PSNR/Dam. Red. 2)
Inventory--Bone Break Sunder (16%), Anni (19/12), Torch once it was available, 2--5 all res SCs, 2--30% LR GCs, misc. resists SCs to get all resists max with Light Res to 301%
What's left you ask?? Grinding the levels to 99 again...Replace the Hurricane-Syd that was lost to the HD Crash
Build for the leveling Grind will be Tornado--Max Cyclone Armor, Twister, Tornado, Hurricane, Oak Sage, 1 Point Artic Blast, Raven, Spirit Wolf, Dire Wolf, Summon Grizzly...leftover points into Dire Wolf to up life on the Grizzly.
Still have not found a Ravenfrost...so that would replace a Rare FCR Ring...but then I'll need to craft a 2/10+FCR druid Amulet...Cham rune would replace the Um in either Jalal's or Stormshield, which then the Ravenfrost would come off for a skill ring (SOJ or BK). That's the ultimate end game gear...plus any more Elemental Skillers that I come across...
Gear for the leveling Grind:
Helm-- Um'd Jalal's
Amulet--Mara's (27@)
Weapon--36 Res HoTo
Shield--Um'd Stormshield
Swap--6/6/3 CtA + Spirit
Armor--Enigma Archon Plate
Gloves--Trang's
Belt--Arach's
Boots--34MF War Travs
Ring #1--Rare (10FCR/13 AR/6 Dex/7 All res/33 FR)
Ring #2--Rare (10 FCR/82 AR/2 STR/24 Life/5 Mana/25 PSN R)
Inventory--
Cube, Druid Torch (17/10), Anni (19/12/5), Gheed's (136/13/40), 78% Cold Sunder, 16% Phys Sunder, Plain Ele Skiller, 2--5 all res SCs, 4--7 MF SCs, 1--6 MF/11 FR SC, 3--20 Life SCs, 5--19 Life SCs, 1--18 life/7 LR SC, Tome of TP and ID, keys.
DoubleTrouble's turn for a little while after that Uber battling with Hurricane-Syd.
DoubleTrouble slowly made it through Act 1 on players 1 to the Pits...Ran the Pits from level 80-85 on P1 to grind some levels and maybe get lucky with some drops having 150ish MF. Drops were awesome for DoubleTrouble.
Gimmershred, Lacerator and a JMOD! I'll take that. I yelled pretty loud, like a reaction yell, to that JMOD. Probably the most insane drop I've had in a long time...I have never found one before in the 20+ years of playing. It went to a trophy drop mule for now. After 85 dinged, it was onto questing again.
A nice All Res SC dropped in the Catacombs level 4 before Andy.
Andy didn't drop anyting, nothing to note through Act 2 at all. Act 3 durance dropped the next interesting item. I don't know what I would make in this staff...maybe a CtA??
Once Meph was done, I decided to stop an do 500 LK runs with DoubleTrouble...needing to find 2 Surs/1 Ber and 1 Lo for sure.
500 Runs down...time to move onto to trying to accomplish Guardian.
Hell Forge--
Down goes Diablo--
Nothing to note through Act 5, Baal Fight!
2 Guardians done. 5 to go.
DoubleTrouble is a pure Double Throw Barb.
Skills are as follow:
Maxed--Double Throw, Double Swing, Throwing Mastery, Battle Orders
5 points into Natural Res.
4 points into Find Item
1 point into Bash, Howl, Find Potion, Shout, Battle Command, Inc. Stamina, Inc. Speed, Iron Skin
Gear:
IK Helm w/ 2 P-Topaz
Amulet--19 All Res. +17 Dex (gambled)
Weapons--Gimmershred + Lacerator
Weapon Swap--+2 Warcy/+3 Warcry BO Sticks
Armor--Hustle RW in a Dusk Shroud
Gloves--Immortal King's
Belt--Immortal King's
Boots--Rare (20FRW/27 CR/33 LR/10 MF) (Gambled)
Ring 1--Rare (28LR/5 MF/random other mods)
Ring 2--Rare (10FCR/60 AR/31 Life/All res 7/19 FR)
Inventory--Cube, Tomes, Gheed's(148/12/26), 2x Plain Warcry GCs, 23 life +12CR GC, 6 STR +20LR, 24 FR GC, 3 STR +29 CR, 5 all res SC, random life, resists and damage SCs
Next up for DoubleTrouble is farming Keys, 1 more +3 Warcry weapon, more runes and items for Ubers. Hopefully he can survive the grind to 99 for the ultimate goal.
Hurricane-Syd got some playing time here and there when the TZs were worth it. Such as Chaos, Andy, Meph, Sewers, Ancient Tunnels, WSK. The big ones for EXP. Syd is up to level 94 now. 5 more levels to grind to 99...again...
3 Updates incoming...3 different posts...up first--Hurricane-Syd UT99er remake...
Syd is at level 95.65 running TZs. Syd is currently finishing up his set in the RFL. Some screenshots won't be available right away do to the RFL.
Hurricane-Syd has been lucky to have TZ Andy 3 times in the last month while I was able to play. Drops from TZ Andy are always crazy.
I thought I hit my screenshot button after the ID but I thought wrong when looking through the screenshots. So I had to go into my "Trophy Drop Mule" to pull it back out and screenshot.
"Insert Rune Pic Here"
Last drop that is worth noting came from TZ Tal Rasha's Tombs
2nd 30 Mara's Syd has found
After this update with all the TZ Andy running, Hurricane-Syd's grail sits at -66. Lifetime grail is still at -2 (Missing Tyreal's and Cranium Basher)
Hurricane-Syd will continue to run TZs on the grind to 99.
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