Wow, this really starts going strong now. Zons are breathing on my neck. Im not afraid, for they lack the "skip the rest of the game for 24 mana" spell. Several tourney vets are pushing it. Still not afraid, though, they wont be able to help themselves and try to do this properly. Skelliemancer joined *raises eyebrows*. Uh ... yeah I better start showing some progress
also - @OldSoldier let me add you to the table, this whole sneaky "4th place and closing in" needs to stop, you are not fooling us
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Forumite Character Class Lvl Progress
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Skiff ColdFever Sorc 56 A2 NM
Norcim Valryka Zon 52 A2 NM
PhineasB Orange Zon 49 A1 NM
OldSoldier GaranDarkslayer Pal 36 A5 N
Vildecor Rowena Sin 28 A3 N
Pb_pal Elding Pal 26 A3 N
Babyhell ItsATrap Sin 21 A2 N
Grisu Lugh Barb 1 A1 N
zemaj OUGNecro Nec 1 A1 N
Deeds
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Ran through to Outer Cloister WP. Cleared everything but Pits, since I was just about filled up for both inventory and stash. Figured just have a mad dash back to get that on /p1 at the start of next session before I summon up the crew.
Got a Fire-type Rogue merc after dealing with Blood Raven (incidentally, necro's comment of "Too many empty graves" was amusing, as when I heard it, it occurred to me that could as easily be a toast in his case), and figured that was good enough for going forward. Sporting a 3-chipped emerald bow, she takes care of the few things that slip past the posse well enough. Still haven't filled up her armor or helm, but doesn't really seem to be necessary, what with that animated ossuary she can easily hide behind. Debating on if I want to keep her around for awhile, or just go ahead and hire a Mr. Pointy-Stick when we get to Act2... particularly as I found something I could potentially make a 'Malice' with, provided I can get the runes for it, and not have to burn up too many of my gems rolling polearm. Speaking of, how about this for a starter-stick? Lack of sockets kills it, for our purposes though... realize now I should have saved it for my first Iggy, particularly since Charsi was not impressed.
Stuck a topaz and goldfind jewel in necro's cap early on, and between that and a couple of goldfind charms we were fortunate enough to pick up along the way, we have a tidy little sum stored up after laboriously picking up every gold drop and hawking every throwing potion and random blue encountered that would sell for more than basecost+80, which was increased after rescuing Cain, since we could drop that +80... not totally sure why, but it's always cool to have a little extra cash, in case we need to gamble crafting bases. That chipped topaz was apparently enough to make Countess drop something that would normally have made me quite happy in a tourney...
That's even after I dropped it to /p1 before descending to lvl5... such a troll. That Ral represents the sum total of my rune drops thus far... hopefully I can milk a few more from the monastery levels before we get to A2. Otherwise, had a couple nice, and useful, drops without need for shopping, which is always a plus.
So our skellies are pretty boss atm. Probably need to start thinking about the Andy fight soon, as I'm sure one round of her poison will break them like so many matchsticks...
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Rich (BB code):
Forumite Character Class Lvl Progress
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Skiff ColdFever Sorc 56 A2 NM
Norcim Valryka Zon 52 A2 NM
PhineasB Orange Zon 49 A1 NM
OldSoldier GaranDarkslayer Pal 36 A5 N
Vildecor Rowena Sin 28 A3 N
Pb_pal Elding Pal 26 A3 N
Babyhell ItsATrap Sin 21 A2 N
zemaj OUGNecro Nec 17 A1 N
Grisu Lugh Barb 1 A1 N
Deeds
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Wow, this really starts going strong now. Zons are breathing on my neck. Im not afraid, for they lack the "skip the rest of the game for 24 mana" spell. Several tourney vets are pushing it. Still not afraid, though, they wont be able to help themselves and try to do this properly. Skelliemancer joined *raises eyebrows*. Uh ... yeah I better start showing some progress
Wow, some great progress by everyone! I personally always keep an eye out for Black Hack just to make sure he's being kept in check. If anyone is curious or wants to catch up with the forum's favourite bad guy, his adventures have been compiled and are listed in the M/P/G sticky.
--
Right out into the jungles Elding found the Jade Figurine right before killing the big bad arachnid. Runes are getting a bit better now, as he found his first Ral. Shortly after that, a Gem Shrine gave Elding his very first PGem!
I won't use it just yet, but it's exciting nonetheless. Next he grabbed the Gidbinn and equipped an actually pretty decent Ormus ring:
Then he quickly went down to visit Endugu before heading off to the Kurast Cities. Finally he found a Tal so he could make himself an armor before killing Sarina and making his way through the sewers. The council was easily taken care of.
and so was the trip to Meph. Merc has lost his power now so he's basically a walking aura, but that's alright because Elding is more thna up to the task with his burgeoning Holy Shock aura. Meph stood no chance and it's through to act 4 at level 30. Getting antsy to do some crafting now!
Elding the Tesladin, lvl 30 - Pandemonium Fortress
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Skiff ColdFever Sorc 56 A2 NM
Norcim Valryka Zon 52 A2 NM
PhineasB Orange Zon 49 A1 NM
OldSoldier GaranDarkslayer Pal 36 A5 N
Pb_pal Elding Pal 30 A4 N
Vildecor Rowena Sin 28 A3 N
Babyhell ItsATrap Sin 21 A2 N
zemaj OUGNecro Nec 17 A1 N
Grisu Lugh Barb 1 A1 N
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Continued on with A1, and had my first NDE in that /p1 mad dash back to The Pit... really underestimated the mobs at the Monastery Gate, and nearly got caught in the sheer mass of them, but managed to wiggle through with some fancy footwork, and a Light Healing pot or three chugged. Second NDE came just a few minutes later when I failed to recognize the red bits of armor still clinging to the otherwise identical Bone Warriors in The Pit... had an existential moment, wondering what in the actual blazing **** was happening and why my skellies had suddenly turned on me. Had to pop a health pot+rejuve to get through that one, and by that time the crew had finished the couple of Fallen that they wer far more interested in and come to my swift rescue... lesson learned. Was rewarded with an XP shrine within the next screen, prompting a swift rush through 90% of the level, ignoring drops and focusing on killing everything visible, with it expiring right as I found the Pit2 entrance, naturally. Made a much more fun than usual run back through, picking over the loots left behind. Run back to Outer Cloister was far less eventful, being aware of the mobs that had followed me out the gates, we just swung wide of all that nonsense.
Barracks was uneventful, skellies killed the Smith almost before I even recognized the layout, much less had the hammer icon show up.
Jail provided several nice opportunities to let the merc get some kills, sniping through the bars, and catch up on levels a bit.
Inner Cloister and Cathedral went by in a blink, never even saw Bane Ash and would have spent more time looking around to see if it had spawned teleport, but noticed a double rare drop, so figured out what had happened before doing so... 6 skellies with slvl7 SM are amazingly efficient at mowing things down at this stage, particularly when you keep things Amped.
Catacombs had two more XP shrines, so that was some tasty gains, allowing us to finish A1 at clvl20. Might have been more, but for some odd reason these rogues build 'catacombs' in a style much more fitting to living areas or offices, though oddly devoid of furnishings, aside from a random chest here and there
I definitely over-thought the Andariel fight... made a shiny new 3 chipped ruby Hunter's Bow for the rogue merc, and stuck a point into Iron Maiden in anticipation of this being a drawn out slog of raising skellies for her to beat on. Even went so far as to pull her out to the stairs room, after having dropped a portal in the main chamber. As I was running back to the waypoint, I noticed I still had 3 skellies in tow (though the merc did suffer her first death) and even watched the poison on two of them expire before we got back to town. This in mind, rezzed Annor, purchased a half dozen antidotes, went through the portal, cleared out the main chamber, and after buffing the merc and necro with 3 antidotes each, just went for Andy straight commando style, Amping and letting the squad do what they do... at the end, still had 4 skellies left, with two dying to poison as the death-flames burned. A bit anticlimactic. Drop was junk, except for the Sapphire.
Actually, drops were pretty much junk overall... got excited when a Crude Belt dropped. The Countess Ral remains my only rune, which means starting A2 with nothing good for the merc, and only the white staffmod items I've accrued being equipable at all (oh, and Akara's +1 Max Damage ring, yay). Thinking about Imbuing a Composite Bow to try alleviating that, though I had kinda hoped to use that on a Zombie Head, but haven't seen a single white one yet, outside of the damaged/cracked variety, which due to aforementioned nonexistant rune drops I have not been able to normalize. Need to double check staffmod generation rules to make sure I haven't already passed the point to get Tier1 staffmods, which would make the heads a much less attractive option anyway...
Oh well, have 200k+ gold stashed, as well as 6 >5000gp items to sell when we get to A2 anyway, so maybe a better wand will show up, unlikely as that may be.
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Skiff ColdFever Sorc 56 A2 NM
Norcim Valryka Zon 52 A2 NM
PhineasB Orange Zon 49 A1 NM
OldSoldier GaranDarkslayer Pal 36 A5 N
Pb_pal Elding Pal 30 A4 N
Vildecor Rowena Sin 28 A3 N
Babyhell ItsATrap Sin 21 A2 N
zemaj OUGNecro Nec 20 A2 N
Grisu Lugh Barb 1 A1 N
Deeds
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Act 2 started out nicely, with a Ko and a Stealskull in the sewers:
We then found an Eye of Etlich from the boss who guards the Horadric Cube chest. We kept seeing white and magic Serpentskin armors dropping, so I was hopeful that would continue but one of them would roll unique. Spoiler alert for the rest of the update: 22 total white/magic ones dropped, 0 uniques... Always enjoyable to run into a boss hawk nest:
Valryka's poor fire resistance was starting to be an issue (18FR), so the plan was to craft some Safety boots since I was able to put together an extra perfect emerald. Also had found a magic mesh and sharkskin belt, so I could craft some belts to replace the current 3 slot Hit Power one. The Far Oasis WP was right next to the entrance to the Lost City, so we cleared the Far Oasis out and took a muling/crafting break. The Safety boots were not that great, but we did get FR on the caster belt, so we're using that now. The crafted blood belt will be kept in the stash for now to help if we run into tough LIs and I need the open wounds. For general playing though the FR and mana help from the caster belt is more useful.
We'd hardly had any charm upgrades in NM, but then in a short span of time in the Far Oasis and Lost City we found a 15 life SC and 2 serpents grand charms totaling 91 mana, 12 FHR, and 7 FRW. So that was a really set!
I've started to use Decoy a bunch more but realized I'm so used to playing bowazons and using LF that I always cast the decoy midway between Valryka and the enemies, and then have to run right past her in order to use CS/LS... I've working on trying to be more precise with casting the decoy on the opposite side of packs from where Valryka will end up engaging them. I'm hoping to make this a habit now before I actually really start to need it.
We hit level 57 in the Palace Level 3, which maxed out LS. The current plan is to put skill points into Valk for a bit since I'd like her to get to 17 for a War Pike, but otherwise I need to start thinking about ways to deal with LIs. I had been thinking jab, which might still be the best option, but we will need to get a much more damaging weapon for that to work. I'm planning to Safety craft the first blue ceremonial javelin we find, but we only have 1 Sol at the moment so Kasim might take priority for using that. I have a plain white one saved for an imbue if needed later in NM, but will hold off for a bit until it becomes needed.
We found the Summoner on the final wing of the Arcane Sanctuary. Started a new session in the Canyon of the Magi and got a Valk with an amp damage weapon! Always nice to have that, so I tried hard to keep her alive as long as possible. I kept her through most of the first 3 false tombs, but Ancient Kaa took her down real quick before I noticed. The re-summoned Valk had no problem tanking him.
We ran into the notorious Black Hack again in one of the false tombs. I always find it interesting when beetle bosses get LE as a modifier, since they are already LE.
Most of the act was pretty uneventful. The only gear upgrades were mentioned in the post, otherwise we mostly just put together a decent new supply of pgems. Duriel on P3 was uneventful; he dropped had a bunch of uninspiring rares. In exciting news, barring a quick update from Skiff, Valryka has made it to the top of the table! Pretty sure this is the first tournament I can remember where that has happened, so I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts.
Dark Clan Crusher - Rocky Foothills
Eye of Etlich - Halls of the Dead Level 3
Hwanins Bill - Maggot Lair Level 1
Aldurs Rhythm - Maggot Lair Level 1
Ume's Lament - Lost City
Milabrega's Orb - Lost City
Anjelic Halo - Claw Viper Temple Level 1
Eth Visceratuant - Arcane Sanctuary
Goblin Toe - False Tomb
Valryka, level 60 CS/LS Zon, Act 3 NM
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Norcim Valryka Zon 60 A3 NM
Skiff ColdFever Sorc 56 A2 NM
PhineasB Orange Zon 49 A1 NM
OldSoldier GaranDarkslayer Pal 36 A5 N
Pb_pal Elding Pal 30 A4 N
Vildecor Rowena Sin 28 A3 N
Babyhell ItsATrap Sin 21 A2 N
zemaj OUGNecro Nec 20 A2 N
Grisu Lugh Barb 1 A1 N
Deeds
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GaranDarkslayer finished up act 5 normal last night, and killed the cows at /P1. The red portal was about 3 game feet from the Cow King, which I'd never seen before, at least that I remember. I holy fire zealed twice and he was down in a rain of stamina potions.
Before that, though, he did rescue Anya and pick up this shield as his reward, which is useful on switch for increased vigor speed if nothing else due to the +1 skill.
And Baal dropped his usual present (for me, anyway). I thought about personalizing it as a funny joke but then decided not to handicap poor Garan since I have a history of deeding tournament paladins.
GaranDarkslayer is now level 48 in A1NM and ready to get some stuff done. I think this upcoming act will be the last of the "sparse update" type since I haven't respecced into what I plan to be yet, and will not until after finishing the act and crafting all of my gear.
Started off A2 by going straight for the Cube, as I figured that would be the best chance of getting that white Zombie Head or the runes to normalize one, which I would need the Cube for anyway. Was going exactly as planned, as an El rune dropped almost immediately.
So now I had a choice: do I turn down /p settings, and nerf XP gains to try keeping clvl down, or suicide-run, killing as few mobs as possible in a mad dash to the Cube? I opted for the latter, as the thought of giving up any XP gains in a single pass tourney just makes me grind my teeth. Worked as well as can be expected, as Skellies really don't play along with that idea, right until Halls of the Dead, where that quickly led to another NDE due to greater mummy poison... Ok, screw that, a rare Head isn't worth dying over. So went back to clearing out most mobs, leaving stragglers for the trip back. At first this seemed like it might work, even got another El, but I ended up leveling on HotD lvl2, which bumped potential imbue ilvl to 25... so much for that whole scheme.
Since it mattered little after that, went ahead and did the usual full clears for the rest of the session, which quickly got me another El, and shortly after, the Cube as well. Back on the surface, I had already killed just enough that I would have felt like cheating to S&E and mule in crafting gems and rejuves, so continued to try finding an appropriate stopping point. Luckily WP was right inside the entrance to Dry Hills, so finished clearing Rocky Waste & Stony Tomb, getting another lvl-up, then back to town & looked over my stash+inventory and decided to go get Radament, since I wasn't quite bursting at the seams. Uneventful, though I did get my first natural-dropped crafting rune, a Tir, followed quickly by an Eld, and that tasty Book of Skill. Also, never noticed before, but if you have already gotten the Cube, the Horadric Scroll doesn't drop.
Had a couple cool, if not very useful, drops this session.
Both Clegaw's gloves and shield, as well as the Dimoak's Hew. With the Hotspur from Countess, I'm starting to get a little collection of S&Us that I would normally love during a tourney. RNG has a droll sense of humor, no?
***
So, I decided I was going to finish out the act, go ahead and slog through all the narrow corridor bits and get that pain over with and I did... barely, but we'll get there momentarily.
Dry Hills was less than eventful, outside of an uptick in rune drops, which was nice. Maggot Lair was a pain, as it always is with a Skellimancer, but with much back-tracking to keep skellies in tow, and dancing back and forth to keep them in front, it was cleared at last. Also went ahead and finally pointed CE to help with the traffic jams, though keeping it at 1 hard point for now... wouldn't want to make this too easy, now would we?
Lost City was nothing special, though AT showed off some, dropping a Berserker's Hatchet and several more runes.
Claw Viper Temple actually had a few tense moments, but all in first level with a couple random boss packs getting Extra Strong + Extra Fast, which can always go south quickly, particularly if they spawn on a beetle, which they naturally did. Fun stuff, that. Was rewarded for getting through with a Beserker's Headgear. Lvl2 was a cake walk after that, no undead at all, just serpents. Fankskin & co where no match for the posse, who by this point I had managed to get up to 8 skellies with 18 points being reached in lvl1.
On to the palace levels, where things started to slow down considerably. Horror and Burning Dead archers were pretty much a constant threat, and spent most the levels with my hand hovering over the potion keys. Urdars almost always meant losing at least one skelli, and I started having to use CE more, which made replacing them problematic a few times, and left me with a blue bulb almost never more than half filled until we quaffed some blue juice. Cellar1 dropped a nice wand with +3CE, which promptly replaced the +3 Teeth wand on our casting switch and made a notable difference on how many casts it took to clear out bottlenecks and archer/mage packs once we got a corpse, which definitely helped with the mana situation despite the increased casting cost. Cellar2 had an interesting oddity, in that Fire Eye didnt spawn in the Portal room, but all the way to the east side in one of the long corridor-esque rooms, which I'm not sure I have ever seen happen before.
Took a short break and S&E to mule off all the drops accumulated thus far before clearing the Arcane Sanctuary, as we had been quite fortunate in the quantity of runes and gems dropping, and had hope that AS would be a great source for even more. It certainly was, with the first wing (terraces) finally dropping our first Eth. Woot! Halfway to a 'Stealth' BP which we are highly anticipating... just a question of who gets it between necro and merc.
Second wing (traps) ended up being Summoner's... which was when I really started to realize how fragile we actually are. Pulled as many of the goatmen and ghosts as would come before rushing in, and good thing we did... Glacial Spike would take necro down to just over half-health with one shot and the slow was TERRIBLE for the skellies. Add to that the three vampires that just would not be pulled off his platform casting firewalls, compounding the elemental damage we had to face just to get there, making it an interesting spot indeed. Had to abort first three attempts, trying calculated approaches in, and finally went back and picked a couple thawing pots I remembered dropping earlier, assigned them a belt slot, and ran in with the necro, alternating between thawing and health pots to get up to the platform, dropped a TP, and quick in-out to get the rest of the gang there that way. Summoner and vampires fell in about half a second after we jumped back through the TP.
After that fun, we went ahead and cleared the other two wings (stairs, then teleporters, to assure last would be less tedious of the two, definitely a totally different stance than I usually take), which were quite a windfall for drops. Lots of vendor food, few more runes and gems, a couple charm upgrades, and even a Hsarus' belt adding to the collection of useless S/Us we are accumulating out of habit. S&E to mule after securing Canyon of the Magi WP.
Canyon was more relaxing, with open spaces again. Quickly cleared with nothing of especial note happening or dropping.
Tombs were more tricky, large groups of mobs with resurrectors and elemental damage to boot... our resists are rather low, not wanting to clog up the inventory with charms too much as we like to sell all the items that go for >150/space. Quite nice drops overall, including a Deathspade, which we naturally kept. Ancient Kaa was a pushover, dying before we could even get a good screenie. All these drops did present a problem though, as stash and inventory were having to be shuffled around quite a bit to accommodate.
Made a judgment call and did a S&E to mule before clearing the final false tomb, doing the run through Canyon on /p1 before continuing. Naturally this led to our first stairtrap, which was quite fun without the full gang to alleviate such. Ended up throwing down a Bonewall for a bit of CC, and Annor + Teeth quickly yielded a corpse to get the team going again. Bit of frustration when a Tal dropped, and I then realized I had left an Eld in my stash instead of the Eth I had meant to when muleing. After a bout of grumbling, I decide to hell with it and continued, since I figured getting through the Canyon to the true tomb without killing anything was going to be difficult with a full crew, and didn't want to face another stairtrap situation again so soon. That was the proper call, as it was indeed another stairtrap, though less so than the previous, of course. Cleared out the rest and sat in the orifice room for a minute contemplating how to go about the upcoming moshpit with terrible base cold res, tiny health bulb, and a small army I was sure would be nigh useless.
Decision was to pump Vitality enough to get >200hp, point Decrepify, thawing pot pre-buffs, and going back to get the Cold Res shrine that had spawned about halfway back through the level. Sounds like a plan. At first, seemed like this would work well, with Duriel dropping to 2/3s hp before the last skelli bit it. Stuck around to get the last few hits from merc + Teeth and let merc take a fall before TPing out. Back in town rezzed merc, more thawing pots... and suddenly realized I would have to run back through Canyon if I wanted to summon up a new army... oh well, won't be the the first time and should give enough time for the CR shrine to have regened. Did all that, and got back to tomb, summoned a new pack enroute to CR shrine... and it hasn't regened. Oh well, means last trip will definitely have it, right? Back in the moshpit it quickly became apparent something had gone terribly amiss, with skellies all poofing damned near as soon as we engaged... with a sinking feeling I realized I had summoned them all while still on casting switch, meaning only 1pt SM. Ok, no big, still have merc buffed with thawing pots and Decrep means we can both whittle on Duri a little before having to bail again. That was good for about 5pixels off his remaining hp bar. Back in town, rez merc, thaw pots, run through Canyon only to see roughly half the mobs of the level congregated around the entrance... well, that just stands to reason doesn't it dumbass? Ok. Dance back and forth with them until a hole opens up enough to squeeze through and get in. Back in the tomb I had a nice surprise in that while all this was going on, corpses had poofed... meaning I was only able to get 4 skellies up, though they were at usual stats this time, and I did have the CR shrine for sure now. Moshpit again... and skellies last for enough time to get Duri down to just about 3/8hp. Well, now we get to it... new strategy is to alternate tanking between necro with BA & merc, keeping Decrep up, and hoping for the best... and so ensued our most harrowing battle yet, burned over 14 TPs, an equal amount of merc rezzes, 8 thawing pots and 3 mana pots per trip and three fill ups of rejuves, accumulating enough single-digit hp NDEs to induce heart palpitations... but after all that, we finally stood over a gigantic, maggot-ridded corpse, and a pile of quite useless junk...
Guess we finally figured out why we had been so carefully amassing gold? Time to socket some gear before continuing to A3, and next point available goes straight into Gumby, who would have made this whole ordeal so much simpler...
Act 2 was far more productive on the rune-front, now sitting at:
10x El
5x Eld
8x Tir
2x Nef
2x Eth
1x Ith
1x Tal
1x Ral
Forumite Character Class Lvl Progress
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Norcim Valryka Zon 60 A3 NM
Skiff ColdFever Sorc 56 A2 NM
PhineasB Orange Zon 49 A1 NM
OldSoldier GaranDarkslayer Pal 36 A5 N
Pb_pal Elding Pal 30 A4 N
Vildecor Rowena Sin 28 A3 N
zemaj OUGNecro Nec 28 A3 N
Babyhell ItsATrap Sin 21 A2 N
Grisu Lugh Barb 1 A1 N
Deeds
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***
Quick update:
Made a HP+Mana BP for Necro and a 'Stealth' BP and Gemmed Composite Bow for merc that should help things somewhat. Just hope I can get something a bit better before too much longer. Council should be next big challenge, so that gives me several areas to scrape together something slightly better anyway...
Gemmed Breast Plate
Breast Plate
Defense: 82
Durability: 43 of 50
Required Level: 12
Required Strength: 30
Fingerprint: 0xdf7dd5ee
Item Level: 20
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+15 Defense
+24 to Life
+24 to Mana
+1 Light Radius
3 Sockets (3 used)
Socketed: El Rune
Socketed: Ruby
Socketed: Sapphire
El Rune
Required Level: 11
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: +50 to Attack Rating
+1 to Light Radius
Armor: +15 Defense
+1 to Light Radius
Shields: +15 Defense
+1 to Light Radius
Ruby
Required Level: 12
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: Adds 8 - 12 Fire Damage
Armor: +24 to Life
Shields: Fire Resist +22%
Sapphire
Required Level: 12
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: Adds 4 - 7 Cold Damage Over 2 Secs (50 Frames)
Armor: +24 to Mana
Shields: Cold Resist +22%
Stealth
Superior Breast Plate
TalEth
Defense: 73
Durability: 42 of 50
Required Level: 17
Required Strength: 30
Fingerprint: 0x63023d75
Item Level: 17
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+25% Faster Run/Walk
+25% Fast Cast Rate
+25% Faster Hit Recovery
+6% Enhanced Defense
+6 to Dexterity
Regenerate Mana 15%
+15 Maximum Stamina
Poison Resist +30%
Magic Damage Reduced by 3
2 Sockets (2 used)
Socketed: Tal Rune
Socketed: Eth Rune
Eth Rune
Required Level: 15
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: -25% Target Defense
Armor: Regenerate Mana 15%
Shields: Regenerate Mana 15%
Gemmed Composite Bow
Composite Bow
Two Hand Damage: 4 - 8
Durability: 35 of 36
Required Level: 12
Required Strength: 25
Required Dexterity: 35
Fingerprint: 0x499bb6eb
Item Level: 15
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+50 to Attack Rating
Adds 1 - 22 Lightning Damage
2% Mana stolen per hit
3% Life stolen per hit
+1 to Light Radius
3 Sockets (3 used)
Socketed: El Rune
Socketed: Skull
Socketed: Topaz
El Rune
Required Level: 11
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: +50 to Attack Rating
+1 to Light Radius
Armor: +15 Defense
+1 to Light Radius
Shields: +15 Defense
+1 to Light Radius
Skull
Required Level: 12
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: 2% Mana stolen per hit
3% Life stolen per hit
Armor: Replenish Life +3
Regenerate Mana 12%
Shields: Attaker Takes Damage of 12
I managed to squeeze some time out of the week to get some progress on Rowena. Level 20 Fists of Fire continued to dominate, and I won't even bother switching to Phoenix Strike with the Steel Flail until it's damage numbers surpass FoF. The jungle areas were very lucrative, netting 6 Ral runes before reaching the LK waypoint and the first muling session. Also a Tal rune which let me make a Stealth Chain Mail. At muling session 2 (Trav WP), I decided to cube 3 of them to make an Ancient's Pledge in a Large Shield. Now all resistances save cold are maxed and, more importantly, I could mule off some of the resistance charms I'd been hoarding.
Ormus's ring reward was somewhat disappointing:
A rare Blade Talon drop with sockets made up for the disappointment:
I stuck a Tir in this and will look for a nice jewel or Perfect Skull to finish it off. Speaking of perfect gems, Rowena found her second gem shrine in the Durance level 1:
Only a couple of close calls in Act III, Ssark hit Rowena a couple of times while amped, but I was able to back off quickly enough. Some champion Witch Doctors were also troublesome with only 30 fire resist, and required a Full Rejuv. The council was pretty easy with CoS, although Pratham needed a big purple to stay in the fight. I dialed the players setting down to 3 for Durance Level 3 to take on Mephisto. As Rowena said, "Mephisto, you were no match for me."
No sockets for any of the rares, so they were all promptly sold. The only other S/U finds were Cathan's Seal and Stoutnail.
Our (unused) rune tally so far:
Code:
El x 13
Eld x 7
Tir x 5
Nef x 5
Eth x 5
Ith x 5
Tal x 1
Ral x 3
I still plan on holding off on crafting until I get to Act II NM (and level 51+). I should be able to post my Act IV update in a couple of days since it's a quick one.
Good luck and stay safe out there!
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Norcim Valryka Zon 60 A3 NM
Skiff ColdFever Sorc 56 A2 NM
PhineasB Orange Zon 49 A1 NM
OldSoldier GaranDarkslayer Pal 36 A5 N
Vildecor Rowena Sin 32 A4 N
Pb_pal Elding Pal 30 A4 N
zemaj OUGNecro Nec 28 A3 N
Babyhell ItsATrap Sin 21 A2 N
Grisu Lugh Barb 1 A1 N
Deeds
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Forumite Character Class Lvl Progress
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Edit: I mixed up my merc's name, and also forgot to mention Pratham replaced his grey Brandistock with a white Pike. I still do almost all of the damage, but at least he'll do a bit more to hold his own.
...is still some time away. But seeing me on the bottom of that table and all those great updates made me think I have to shake your feelings of assured victory somewhat
Last thing Lugh did was defeat Mephisto:
This deed was proudly sponsored by this shiny toy, which was waiting for some time in my stash till my mercenary was finally able strong enough to equip it (I only made Nadir Great Helm for the additional STR to equip this polearm )
Code:
Vicious Partizan
Partizan
Two Hand Damage: 44 - 108
Durability: 55 of 65
Required Level: 23
Required Strength: 97
Required Dexterity: 57
Fingerprint: 0xe751f39
Item Level: 25
Version: Expansion 1.10+
32% Enhanced Damage
+9 to Maximum Damage
+10 to Attack Rating
+1 to Light Radius
Requirements -15%
2 Sockets (2 used)
Socketed: Ith Rune
Socketed: Bright Jewel of Freedom
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
Bright Jewel of Freedom
Jewel
Required Level: 1
Fingerprint: 0x85a982a3
Item Level: 1
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+10 to Attack Rating
+1 to Light Radius
Requirements -15%
So far, nothing really interesting happened. My barb is still a one-point wonder with 13 Skill points an 60 stat points left at level 32.
Ormus gave me quite the nice ring:
Code:
Chaos Whorl
Ring
Required Level: 9
Fingerprint: 0xa2b9b842
Item Level: 21
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Maximum Damage
+2 to Life
Cold Resist +14%
Lightning Resist +10%
30% Extra Gold from Monsters
While this ring could have been great if I was able to wear it:
Akara only gave me a lousy 1 MDR ring, but I guess that's ok for now.
No perfect gem so far, but some Flawless ones.
This is my rune count (well, I guess someone really likes Tir...)
Code:
El x 8 (+1 for Steel Broad Sword)
Eld x 6
Tir x 19 (+ 1 used for Nadir Helmet, +1 for Steel Broad Sword)
Nef x 4 (+1 used for Nadir Helmet)
Eth x 6
Ith x 8 (+1 used for the Merc Weapon)
Tal x 3
Ral x 4
Ort x 1
I'm still undecided on which way to go, but I guess I have to commit to something before facing Diablo. I will probably stick to my plan of using Concentrate.
I also might consider making an Ancient's Pledge Shield for Diablo and the rest of Normal, if no Shael Rune drops on my way to the last WP in Act IV. A Stealth RW might also be in it to survive Big D.
Oh, btw, I kept horking EVERY SINGLE CORPSE, thus the blue potions in my belt...
Great progress everyone! Keep it up!
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Norcim Valryka Zon 60 A3 NM
Skiff ColdFever Sorc 56 A2 NM
PhineasB Orange Zon 49 A1 NM
OldSoldier GaranDarkslayer Pal 36 A5 N
Vildecor Rowena Sin 32 A4 N
Grisu Lugh Barb 32 A4 N
Pb_pal Elding Pal 30 A4 N
zemaj OUGNecro Nec 28 A3 N
Babyhell ItsATrap Sin 21 A2 N
Deeds
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Quick update as Elding has finished up the fourth Act.
He found a Sol right away in the Steppes which is very nice, and he's still cruising along with the ever-increasing power of Holy Shock. Defensively though it's starting to get dicey as his equipment quality starts to taper off. He's gotta be very careful not to get surrounded as it gets dangerous fast, especially with Zeal mechanics. A quick pit stop at Izual
Before moving up through the RoF to the Forge
Meh. The Nef is at least a crafting rune, but it's a shame about the PSkull. The rest of the gem haul was fine though, so overall I'm happy enough with it. He popped the Izual skillpoints into Holy Shield for now to get a better timer on it, and with that he was through the CS in no time (finding a Ral along the way and fighting the big guy:
The merc obviously didn't survive, but Elding did! Diablo was nice enough to leave an Amethyst in his wake, so now it's on to the final Act.
Elding the Tesladin, lvl 34 - Harrogath
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Norcim Valryka Zon 60 A3 NM
Skiff ColdFever Sorc 56 A2 NM
PhineasB Orange Zon 49 A1 NM
OldSoldier GaranDarkslayer Pal 36 A5 N
Pb_pal Elding Pal 34 A5 N
Vildecor Rowena Sin 32 A4 N
Grisu Lugh Barb 32 A4 N
zemaj OUGNecro Nec 28 A3 N
Babyhell ItsATrap Sin 21 A2 N
Deeds
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Act 2 started, with a p8 clean up of the Rocky waste. As the Dry hills' waypoint was right at the beginning of the area, I decided to complete the session by cleaning the sewers and get the Radament's skillpoint to strengthen WoF. Clvl ~22.2!
Runewise, it finally started... El El Eld Eld Nef Tir Tir...a slow but living push.
Gearwise, still wearing Akara's ring and white/grey stuff (so do the merc). Found some LRes gcs, which is nice (11, 17).
It's been a rough week at work, but I finally decided to finish up Act IV. Cloak of Shadows and Mind Blast saw plenty of use, especially in tonight's session (RoF + CS) since I was still kinda stressed from work and was brute-forcing my way through. The Hellforge gave us some excellent gems and a crafting rune:
S/Us found in Act IV were a second Civerb's Ward, Arctic Horn, and Sigon's Gage. I also found some rare chain gloves with +1 MA and 4% LL. Since those were really the only good mods on them, I decided against keeping them for a rare upgrade (plus I lack the Thul rune anyway).
The seal bosses were handled with plenty of Mind Blasts and CoS. Then it was time for Big D himself. Luckily he realized I was the bigger threat and ignored my mercenary.
No real danger here, just health pots during his lightning hoses. Pratham, despite many close calls, never suffered a death in the entirety of Act IV, which I find very impressive. He did suck up all my full rejuvs in this last session (mostly from the Infector pack), which is why you'll notice in the above screenshot I was left with regular purples as I didn't stock up beforehand. Diablo's drop contained the gloves I mentioned previously, and the rest was worse junk.
I'll wait to add an update on my rune count until Act V + cows are finished, though I can say I now have an Amn rune, 6 perfect gems (only 1 of which is a non-crafting gem), and 10 flawless gems.
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Norcim Valryka Zon 60 A3 NM
Skiff ColdFever Sorc 56 A2 NM
PhineasB Orange Zon 49 A1 NM
OldSoldier GaranDarkslayer Pal 36 A5 N
Vildecor Rowena Sin 35 A4 N
Pb_pal Elding Pal 34 A5 N
Grisu Lugh Barb 32 A4 N
zemaj OUGNecro Nec 28 A3 N
Babyhell ItsATrap Sin 21 A2 N
Deeds
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Well, GaranDarkslayer made it to A2NM, which is where this tournament really starts...
Along the way in act 1, however, he had some nasty scrapes like this immediate stair trap on the way to pay a visit to the Countess.
The boss in that pack was extra strong, and there was no way to move at all (the monsters didn't move when we entered the level either, they were positioned exactly like this upon entering), and zeal is not a friendly skill in this circumstance since it spreads the wealth a little too much. Fortunately, the merc held out long enough and the rejuvs lasted longer than the goat men, but not by more than a couple of potions. Whew.
Coldcrow was similar, she chased us around the cave for a while, putting Garan in bad spots and killing Azrael several times before falling herself.
The catacombs (both levels 2 and 3) had the lightning ball shooters for boss packs, and the shaman raising the dark ones behind us really put a big mess into these areas. If it were hell difficulty it would have been deeds for sure, but we made it through after some tense negotiations.
Black Hack sighting!
Garan kept Holy Fire active all the way through Andariel (/P1 of course) and she dropped as expected. Upon leaving for Lut Gholein, Mr. Darkslayer did a complete revamp of his gear and skills, and switched his Prayer merc for a Thorns merc. I've not run one of those before, or at least for a long time, so we're going to see how this shakes out.
He decided to leave his holy fire roots behind and become a hybrid of sorts, between Smite and Conversion. His skills after the respec amounted to almost maximizing Fanaticism, having a point in Vigor plus its pre-requisite skills, and a few points in conversion (to 25% chance to convert) and about 10 each in Smite and Holy Shield. His gear is spread out between the next two shots.
Ghoul Thirst was a white Pike that we found a while back. I'd anticipated making a safety spear for the merc, but only have one Sol rune at this point, so we used an imbue from Charsi and then upgraded it. At level 20 fanaticism he runs at 12 fpa which is pretty good (or so I think, we haven't battle tested any of this gear yet). The merc also has Imp Visor and Demon Mantle to round out his gear.
The rest of the equipment is Garan's. He used up most of his gems to get his slots filled up, and even had to make a caster amulet rather than the blood or safety amulet he'd rather have, due solely to lack of gems of the correct sort. He was fortunate in getting sockets in both his chest piece and his helm, which greatly assists his resistances situation. Hopefully that buys him some time to find a nice paladin shield that can be personalized at some point. We're also on the lookout for an Io rune so that Garan can make a nice Black runeword and speed up his conversion/smite speed, and also make for some hefty crushing blow.
Thanks @Pb_pal I really like Bitter Hide, those two sockets make it rock. Do you (or anyone) know if it is possible to upgrade crafted items? I'd like to get four row belts instead of the current three row belt; that 24% FHR is really nice and I would like to keep it at least until the end of NM or I can make a Spirit shield and get FHR somewhere else.
)
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