Orange You Glad That Rune Dropped: Craft-Centric Tournament

I'm going to be a dissenting opinion, sometimes it's nice to be able to hide behind your mercenary. All that damage and some life leech will make him a good punching bag. And the best defense is a good offense, the more damage output the quicker you can deal with dangerous monsters. I suppose you do run the risk of playing 2nd fiddle to your merc, which is never fun :/ Especially as a barb!
 
Ok first update. Still alive!

Andy is down! As I mentioned, act 1 started off slowly since I was doing full clear p8 with 1pt frost nova and 1pt ice blast until fireball was unlocked at lvl 12. But after I got fireball and my rogue merc things were smooth. I wore just all white gear, with plus to warmth on the orb, and a chipped skull in the armor. Here are the screenies:

Making my first ever hardcore character:
XtXb3RZ.png


Countess dropping some fairly useful runes
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Even found a unique!
ryW7NPG.png


Static and fireball made short work of andy
Lm2jD8S.png

Akara's ring was +1 max damage, so I sold it back to her. And I found 4(!) blue fcr rings that I had to sell, as well as one amulet :(. Unfortunately, the two runes from countess were all that dropped in A1. So I started a2 at lvl 20, and shopped a 3os +3 fb staff and slapped my eth in it. Otherwise will be starting a2 with all gear with empty sockets. Hoping some runes drop soon. I'm saving the ral rune for leaf, and to that end I also shopped a 2os +2fb staff. Didn't have the patience to keep shopping for a 3fb.

Been making far too many plans for future gearing targets and methods instead of getting work done today, when I'll probably just rip in a2 or a3 normal :LOL:. So obviously I'm having a great time so far.

Also @Grisu i was going to throw in my vote for team bonesnap to have you avoid slapping RNGesus in the face, but wiffing hits is super annoying... so idk.

Rich (BB code):
Forumite     Character         Class   Lvl   Progress
--------     ---------         -----   ---   --------
Skiff        ColdFever         Sorc    77    Guardian
Vang         *Spokane          Zon     81    Guardian
Norcim       Valryka           Zon     81    A2 H
Grisu        Lugh              Barb    79    A2 H
OldSoldier   GaranDarkslayer   Pal     ??    A1 H
PhineasB     Orange            Zon     74    A1 H
Pb_pal       Elding            Pal     58    A3 NM
Vildecor     Rowena            Sin     48    A1 NM
Babyhell     ItsATrap          Sin     21    A2 N
Luhkoh       Amaresu           Sorc    20    A2 N

Rich (BB code):
Forumite   Character   Class   Lvl   Progress
--------   ---------   -----   ---   --------
zemaj      OUGNecro    Nec     33    A3 N
Jocular    PopeJohn... Pal     48    A1 NM
 
@PhineasB nice progress with Orange! I keep hoping you'll pass Valrkya and then I'll get to steal borrow your tactics for difficult situations in Hell. How has your merc been holding up without a Valk? Also pretty jealous of that Lance craft, none of my safety spear attempts had more than mid-80s ED.

@Jocular what a bummer for the deeds at that point. I was looking forward to seeing some of the crafted scepters you might have done. Good luck with your new barb entrant!

@OldSoldier excellent update! Great work in the Tower, I had thought that area might be really tough for Garan. Looking forward to seeing the Crescent Moon once it's available!

@Luhkoh welcome to the tourney! The more entrants the more fun it is!

@Grisu I had an almost picture-for-picture story of creating an Obediance thresher in my update that you have! An option to consider might be to just equip the Obediance until you trigger Enchant, then give it back to the merc and smash things with the Bonesnap. I'm not sure how tedious this would get but the level 21 enchant should last a decent while and give you a nice AR boost. I'm going to be biased, but the double-upped personalized Bonesnap is just too cool not to use!


Thanks for the clarification on the changing difficulties rule. I was pretty sure I'd be OK changing difficulties at this stopping point but nice to confirm.

I haven't had time to progress much the past week, but our team used the time to re-gear and we're ready to proceed! We went back to NM and asked Larzuk to give us 5 sockets in the Thresher. Rolled up an Obediance and then took it over to Anya!
Screenshot005.jpg

Valryka's helm seemed like the a great candidate for improvement, so we used our final imbue on another coronet thinking this would give us the best chance to score some nice features and got nothing (again)...
Screenshot002.jpg

That concludes all quest rewards up to where we are in the game, so we only have the final socket quest and personalization coming up if we make it that far.

After the disappointment from the imbue I crafted 3 new helms (Blood, Caster, Safety). None of the three were better than what Valryka and Kasim were already using... Crafted one more blood armor thinking Kasim might do well with some more LL to pair with his new Obediance and got a decent one. This has now replaced his previous Safety armor. Here's Kasim's stats as things stand now (unseen, 5LL):
Screenshot007.jpg

Crafted another 3 caster gloves since I had an excess of PAmmys but didn't get anything better than our previous spare set or the current blood gloves. Also crafted 2 caster rings and 1 blood ring. The blood ring rolled pretty nice, and replaced an old caster ring we'd been using. Fire had been our lowest resistance so seeing that roll high was really nice!
Screenshot001.jpg

I finally spent most of our saved stat points in Vitality since I'm out of Sols runes and imbues, so getting a great Safety craft Mat Jav seems very unlikely. Plus I can't see needing the extra physical damage from Valryka's jabs at this point. I saved 10 points just in case we need the strength for something, but likely could put these into Vit as well. Still holding off on skill points for a bit to see how Kasim handles himself against LIs with his new setup. I'd love to be able to get a level 27 Valk, but pretty sure getting +2 more skills isn't going to happen so we won't be able to get her the final gear upgrade. Here's Valryka's stats as we prepare to enter the cellars:
Screenshot008.jpg


Rich (BB code):
Forumite     Character         Class   Lvl   Progress
--------     ---------         -----   ---   --------
Skiff        ColdFever         Sorc    77    Guardian
Vang         *Spokane          Zon     81    Guardian
Norcim       Valryka           Zon     81    A2 H
Grisu        Lugh              Barb    79    A2 H
OldSoldier   GaranDarkslayer   Pal     ??    A1 H
PhineasB     Orange            Zon     74    A1 H
Pb_pal       Elding            Pal     58    A3 NM
Vildecor     Rowena            Sin     48    A1 NM
Babyhell     ItsATrap          Sin     21    A2 N
Luhkoh       Amaresu           Sorc    20    A2 N

Rich (BB code):
Forumite   Character   Class   Lvl   Progress
--------   ---------   -----   ---   --------
zemaj      OUGNecro    Nec     33    A3 N
Jocular    PopeJohn... Pal     48    A1 NM
 
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@Norcim I caved upon entering hell and respeced to Valk because couldn’t hold up to boss packs without extra help with the LIs. If I’d dropped to p1 it might have been workable but I wasn’t ready to do that, so respec happened after the tedium of the Cave. Now up to the Palace also and I’ll try to post a full update in the next day or two.
 
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The misadventures of Pluto Nash...wait..wrong entertainment..

The misadventures of Solidify, a wannabe sorceress determined to use only forged items through a magical box that does magical things when a magical button is pressed. Welcome to the wizard world of..

Solidify has determined that Thunderstorm is not a Thunderstorm, but more like an electric fence made to keep animals inside. A slow not-at-all-painful experience to set the world in light, thus Blizzard was taken out of a need to kill things, and a bit of speed, which leaves me to the replacement skill once a respect is available (more on that in a second), Blaze.

Anyone ever use Blaze? Ist it fun and viable, I think it should be, but wouldn't mind an answer, as sorceress are my least played class other than for specific target hunting years ago and my Hydra Sorc in the Random tournament who's life was taken too soon.

About that respect, I blundered and stuck my level 24 point not in Thunderstorm, with a Thundering Boom, I shook the earth and talked to Akara and decided to fix that blunder, probably not my smartest move, lol.

Solidify is sitting pretty at 54 heading to NM now. I am going to have to re-run a fair amount in Act 1 NM to get some Pgems, because I have a grand total of:

1 Amethyst
1 Emerald
1 Ruby
3 Sapphire

(In perspective, I have 4 Sol runes)


My gear is astounding:

  • Plain white: Demonhide Gloves, Belt, and boots.
  • Gemmed Kite shield with: Flawless Topaz/Diamond with a good ole' Tir to make it useable
  • Anya's wand: +3 Cold Mastery, 57 total mana provided, MDR3
  • 2OS Rare armor with 1OS left: 54% FR, 30%PR good ole' Ral to make useable
  • Junk 1OS helm with 8%LR and a Tir
  • Reward rings: Plain old 1PDR from Akara and 8% LR/ 27% PR rare ring from that sucker Ormus.

Stats: 118 Base Str, 172 Vit for a total of 514 Life.

Skills: Blizzard Maxed,4 in Static, 1 point wonders of Shiver Armor(3) and Teleport.


Only one NDE thus far and it was saving Anya because of a bad Teleport (probably be my doom!!)

Been debating on using Charsi for a new Orb or a circlet. Might make a Spirit, but that seems a bit rough unless I make a shield as I'd prefer to keep my personalization until something glorious comes along.

Screenshot241.jpg

Shiver Armor is amazing!

Screenshot242.jpg

Why thank you no magic find for this awesome double Unique drop:

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Screenshot244.jpg

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Anyone ever use Blaze? Ist it fun and viable, I think it should be, but wouldn't mind an answer, as sorceress are my least played class other than for specific target hunting years ago and my Hydra Sorc in the Random tournament who's life was taken too soon.
Jiansonz was a pretty big proponent of Blaze, and I think I remember at least one time that he used it successfully in a tournament. I'm not sure which one exactly but I'm sure you can find it pretty easily. The are a couple different tactics you can use, like laying down a carpet of flames and leading monsters back and forth. Seems like great fun and I've always meant to try one.

--

Out into the Jungles, not long before he found the figurine, offed Sszark, and got himself an actual upgrade with the Ormus ring.

VCyYspj.jpg


He's using that now, swapped in for a previous reward ring. Endugu soon died, and Sarina was easily caught in a doorway, and he found an Amn on his way through the Sewers. The council was a tiny bit tricky, but once separated they fell no problem, and Act 3 was soon completed without issue. Overall very quick, simple and safe. However, that was about to change.

Act 4 started well enough, though Elding is getting hit much harder now as guys like this and this are showing up. Potion consumption has gone wayyyy up, so I might have to rethink my plan of hitting 71 before doing his next crafting session. if this keeps up.

Got his first LI/PI in the PoD, and just look at those Hitpower item procs!

gSPvvT6.jpg


A sneak peek at what it will be like to rely on the merc and his blood equipment's CB/OW to deal with them. The real story here is actually that other gloam behind him though. Look at what he left behind:

4clrTqq.jpg


Well that changes plans a bit! His end-game weapon is now decided (Crescent Moon via personalization, if you haven't figured it out) but I still need a base. Ideally I'd like a PB, but I'm willing to settle if one doesn't drop and things get too slow (which is very possible soon, since Eldings AR is embarrassingly bad).

Tough going in the RoF, Hepahsto was a beast and pushed us wayyyyyy back, so I had to cheese him and let HS do the job (very slowly) from across the pond. While standing on the mercs useless corpse too, ouch.

3vYKiiz.jpg


Grabbed a Pul from the Forge. Then more slogging through the CS with lots of merc resurrections and every single one of my spare Full Rejuvs we finally made it through Vizier, then De Seis, then a Ko along the way before offing Infector and going for the big guy.

6fCXpIv.jpg


Easy as always snugged up in front of the hose. His drop was useless (though not bad in terms of normal tournament circumstances) and it's on to the barbarian homelands!

Other finds:
Realgar Jewel of Bliss - Nice! I could see this getting use in a nice craft.

Elding the Tesladin, lvl 66 - NM Harrogath

--

Rich (BB code):
Forumite     Character         Class   Lvl   Progress
--------     ---------         -----   ---   --------
Skiff        ColdFever         Sorc    77    Guardian
Vang         *Spokane          Zon     81    Guardian
Norcim       Valryka           Zon     81    A2 H
Grisu        Lugh              Barb    79    A2 H
OldSoldier   GaranDarkslayer   Pal     ??    A1 H
PhineasB     Orange            Zon     74    A1 H
Pb_pal       Elding            Pal     66    A5 NM
Vildecor     Rowena            Sin     48    A1 NM
Babyhell     ItsATrap          Sin     21    A2 N
Luhkoh       Amaresu           Sorc    20    A2 N

Rich (BB code):
Forumite   Character   Class   Lvl   Progress
--------   ---------   -----   ---   --------
zemaj      OUGNecro    Nec     33    A3 N
Jocular    PopeJohn... Pal     48    A1 NM
 
@Pb_pal

:love: Those rune drops! And that jewel! Clearly a blessing from above to Light's champion.

@Vang

I'm also having a hard time deciding when to use Imbue quests and Personalizations. Act I to Act V hell has the best and worst potential for drops being on /players1...it's difficult to strategize. Sign of a good tourney :)

@Norcim

Looks like you're ready to take Hell on, good luck in Act III with all the light immunes!

@Luhkoh

I would have never guessed this is your first tourney :0 Ain't that the truth though about theorycrafting, it's what brings us all back to D2 time after time :whistle:
 
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Jiansonz was a pretty big proponent of Blaze, and I think I remember at least one time that he used it successfully in a tournament. I'm not sure which one exactly but I'm sure you can find it pretty easily. The are a couple different tactics you can use, like laying down a carpet of flames and leading monsters back and forth. Seems like great fun and I've always meant to try one.

I could never be as skilled as Jiansonz, but if they made Blaze work in tournaments, its got to be good enough for me (at least until Hell that is!)
 
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It's finally time for an update! I had gotten Rowena to the Outer Cloister waypoint before the RFO began, and I don't remember much of the journey. I was very excited to see this ring for rescuing Cain, though:

Cs7aCrI.jpg


I pushed through to the Inner Cloister to give myself a break from killing Hell cows, and after I finished my 20 hour set, I finished up Act I tonight:

rv967zZ.jpg


Andariel's drop was definitely small potatoes compared to the two Flawless Rubies I found from killing the monsters behind her spawn point.

Finally, crafting time!

Weapons were first up.

v84FCV0.jpg

I went with the Yari, as it was the first exceptional Spear Fara offered. Not much to write home about except for the PMH. A shame the mana leech wasn't life leech instead.
pPq3KkM.jpg

JJUvcSp.jpg

I tried both the blood and hit power recipes with fast bases to see which came out better. I'll probably end up using the Crowbill for the better damage and extra life leech.

Next up was the jewelry.

VuOqroa.jpg

uM3v7Hw.jpg

Not bad, but definitely could be much better. I was really hoping to get some mana leech on the ring, but I was glad to see the strength bonus. Without that I would have had to wait to use the Crowbill.

And finally, the armor slots.

00qAdiW.jpg

x5d1ahV.jpg

pOMaY9Z.jpg

Meh
v4JLT0L.jpg

Very nice!
SkGXtaP.jpg

Went with the caster helm since I failed to get any mana leech, even though masks are fugly.
ht3OJkt.jpg

Merc's armor for the frost nova deliciousness.
n97chKb.jpg

I should have gone with a blood helm for life leech, but this one turned out very nice!

I then went back to normal to personalize the Rhyme Bone Shield. Here's what we look like now:

Lrunyd3.jpg


Not too bad. Definitely much, much better than the white/grey pieces we were sporting before! Our crafting session left us with 3 junk jewels, 1 perfect amethyst, and 1 perfect ruby. We are also fresh out of Sol runes. I'm definitely looking forward to continuing and finding upgrades.

--

Rich (BB code):
Forumite     Character         Class   Lvl   Progress
--------     ---------         -----   ---   --------
Skiff        ColdFever         Sorc    77    Guardian
Vang         *Spokane          Zon     81    Guardian
Norcim       Valryka           Zon     81    A2 H
Grisu        Lugh              Barb    79    A2 H
OldSoldier   GaranDarkslayer   Pal     ??    A1 H
PhineasB     Orange            Zon     74    A1 H
Pb_pal       Elding            Pal     66    A5 NM
Vildecor     Rowena            Sin     53    A2 NM
Babyhell     ItsATrap          Sin     21    A2 N
Luhkoh       Amaresu           Sorc    20    A2 N

Rich (BB code):
Forumite   Character   Class   Lvl   Progress
--------   ---------   -----   ---   --------
zemaj      OUGNecro    Nec     33    A3 N
Jocular    PopeJohn... Pal     48    A1 NM
 
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It's finally time for an update! I had gotten Rowena to the Outer Cloister waypoint before the RFO began, and I don't remember much of the journey. I was very excited to see this ring for rescuing Cain, though:

Cs7aCrI.jpg


I pushed through to the Inner Cloister to give myself a break from killing Hell cows, and after I finished my 20 hour set, I finished up Act I tonight:

rv967zZ.jpg


Andariel's drop was definitely small potatoes compared to the two Flawless Rubies I found from killing the monsters behind her spawn point.

Finally, crafting time!

Weapons were first up.

v84FCV0.jpg

I went with the Yari, as it was the first exceptional Spear Fara offered. Not much to write home about except for the PMH. A shame the mana leech wasn't life leech instead.
pPq3KkM.jpg

JJUvcSp.jpg

I tried both the blood and hit power recipes with fast bases to see which came out better. I'll probably end up using the Crowbill for the better damage and extra life leech.

Next up was the jewelry.

VuOqroa.jpg

uM3v7Hw.jpg

Not bad, but definitely could be much better. I was really hoping to get some mana leech on the ring, but I was glad to see the strength bonus. Without that I would have had to wait to use the Crowbill.

And finally, the armor slots.

00qAdiW.jpg

x5d1ahV.jpg

pOMaY9Z.jpg

Meh
v4JLT0L.jpg

Very nice!
SkGXtaP.jpg

Went with the caster helm since I failed to get any mana leech, even though masks are fugly.
ht3OJkt.jpg

Merc's armor for the frost nova deliciousness.
n97chKb.jpg

I should have gone with a blood helm for life leech, but this one turned out very nice!

I then went back to normal to personalize the Rhyme Bone Shield. Here's what we look like now:

Lrunyd3.jpg


Not too bad. Definitely much, much better than the white/grey pieces we were sporting before! Our crafting session left us with 3 junk jewels, 1 perfect amethyst, and 1 perfect ruby. We are also fresh out of Sol runes. I'm definitely looking forward to continuing and finding upgrades.

--

Rich (BB code):
Forumite     Character         Class   Lvl   Progress
--------     ---------         -----   ---   --------
Skiff        ColdFever         Sorc    77    Guardian
Vang         *Spokane          Zon     81    Guardian
Norcim       Valryka           Zon     81    A2 H
Grisu        Lugh              Barb    79    A2 H
OldSoldier   GaranDarkslayer   Pal     ??    A1 H
PhineasB     Orange            Zon     74    A1 H
Pb_pal       Elding            Pal     66    A5 NM
Vildecor     Rowena            Sin     53    A2 NM
Babyhell     ItsATrap          Sin     21    A2 N
Luhkoh       Amaresu           Sorc    20    A2 N

Rich (BB code):
Forumite   Character   Class   Lvl   Progress
--------   ---------   -----   ---   --------
zemaj      OUGNecro    Nec     33    A3 N
Jocular    PopeJohn... Pal     48    A1 NM
 
Well hit and stunned and no teleport out...

1616078006870.png

Rich (BB code):
Forumite     Character         Class   Lvl   Progress
--------     ---------         -----   ---   --------
Skiff        ColdFever         Sorc    77    Guardian
Vang         *Spokane          Zon     81    Guardian
Norcim       Valryka           Zon     81    A2 H
Grisu        Lugh              Barb    79    A2 H
OldSoldier   GaranDarkslayer   Pal     ??    A1 H
PhineasB     Orange            Zon     74    A1 H
Pb_pal       Elding            Pal     66    A5 NM
Vildecor     Rowena            Sin     53    A2 NM
Babyhell     ItsATrap          Sin     21    A2 N
Luhkoh       Amaresu           Sorc    20    A2 N

Rich (BB code):
Forumite   Character   Class   Lvl   Progress
--------   ---------   -----   ---   --------
zemaj      OUGNecro    Nec     33    A3 N
Jocular    PopeJohn... Pal     48    A1 NM
Vang       Solidify    Sor     54    A1 NM
 
@Vildecor - Tri-res boots?! Very nice! Solid crafting session, congrats.

@Vang - Ouch, RIP Solidify. Condolences on the deeds, getting stunned can be so frustrating when you just can't get to safety. Will you be re-entering? Also, do you always play with the numbers turned off on your health/mana bulbs? That would drive me nuts not knowing exactly how much health I have left!
 
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@Vang - Ouch, RIP Solidify. Condolences on the deeds, getting stunned can be so frustrating when you just can't get to safety. Will you be re-entering? Also, do you always play with the numbers turned off on your health/mana bulbs? That would drive me nuts not knowing exactly how much health I have left!

No re-entry, I actually got another one I'm going to host just debating on doing it now or waiting (Kind of want to play Magic Legends beta next week)

As for your question, yes I never have the life/mana numbers up.
 
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@Vildecor - Nice progress! And some really nice early crafts as well.

@Vang - Sorry about the deeds. FHR is tough to come by from what I've been finding with my crafts.

The cellars had some tough moments where we hit multiple boss packs of archers and mages. I didn't grab any screenshots because the battles were often too intense for that, with Valryka running around like a mad woman casting decoys all over and occasionally shooting a freezing arrow here and there to try to keep packs frozen so the Valk and Kasim could engage them. We never had any close calls, just a few situations where we burned a bunch of full rejuvs on Kasim and portaled to town to remove Amp over and over.

We found a Gheeds in the Arcane Sanctuary! Not bad for only having 25MF at the time. It rolled 160/35/11, and immediately replaced a Sharp GC of Life.
Screenshot001.jpg

We found the Summoner on the final wing of the AS. I haven't seen one of these drop in ages, always kind of cool.
Screenshot002.jpg

I really enjoyed the AS as the only LIs we ran into were the the lightning towers, and Kasim with his new Obedience took care of them without trouble. We didn't hit a single LI in the Canyon, so we went up to p5 so we'd hit level 82 before the tombs and mostly rolled through it. I'm noticing that at the higher player settings CS and LS are definitely starting to lack some power. A pack of champion monsters can make us burn a mana pot or two taking them down now, where before they went down much faster. I keep thinking of burning some of the saved skill points into PS for the synergy points, and might do so in the false tombs if I'm getting frustrated. We finally found our first blue Mat Jav in the Canyon! I'm going to Safety craft it if I find another Sol just so I can say I crafted one jav this play-through. I don't have the stats to use it if it rolls great, but I haven't used a respec yet so that's in play if something fun comes out of it.
Screenshot003.jpg

Our new Gheeds paid off with a Gut Siphon and then another Riphook (no screenie) dropping in the false tombs:
Screenshot004.jpg

Progress through the False Tombs was pretty steady. I kept it at P1 since these are some of my least favorite areas of the game, especially when Unravelers spawn in all of the tombs... Ancient Kaa was very tame this time around.

Screenshot005.jpg

The final false tomb decided we hadn't had enough Unravelers and hit us with a champion pack surrounded by 3-4 regular Unravelers, and then in the next room there was another champion pack surrounded by even more Unravelers. There were probably 13 of them around at the same time, so it was chaos with their bolts flying around (Slow Missles saved the day here) and skeletons resurrecting everywhere. Luckily it was P1 and we were able to just keep bouncing LS off the skeletons until the regular Unravelers were dead, then Valryka could run up and start using CS on the champs. They went down pretty quick once I could focus on them.
Screenshot006.jpg
Screenshot007.jpg

Duriel himself was a pushover. He did manage to take out the Valk once, which is pretty impressive since she can take a beating. For our troubles we were rewarded with a bunch of junk we sold. And with that, we are onto Act 3!
Screenshot008.jpg

Conqueror Valryka, Level 82 CS/LS javazon, Act 3 Hell
 
No re-entry, I actually got another one I'm going to host just debating on doing it now or waiting (Kind of want to play Magic Legends beta next week)

As for your question, yes I never have the life/mana numbers up.
I wouldn't mind if you waited, because otherwise I will plunge right into your new tournament and neglect Lugh in this tournament! 😅

Also, Magic Legends Beta sounds tempting. Not sure if my Laptop has the specs for it...

@Norcim: Nice progress! But now I have to catch up with you! I'm still in the process of clearing all the tombs (Duriel is already down). Maybe I should consider skipping full clears? Went from p1 to p3 because with a single target attack it was simply to annoying, Every boss pack took 5 minutes. Not that it was dangerous, but simply annoying as hell...
 
Have gotten some playing in this weekend so far, and am lvl 32.5 and have made it to a4!
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I had a lot of fun gearing up in a2. I started with a 3os +3fb staff with an eth in it to make it useable, but quickly upgraded to a leaf.
mMbpObL.png


Rolled a couple of savage polarms and then rolled sockets with chippies, and ended up equipping the new (defiance) merc with this.
6aD8LLl.png


I expect he'll be using that until I do my first batch of crafts after a1 nm, but we will see! For armor slots, I slapped an eth in a 3os bp and 2os full helm, and then put a ruby in the helm and two flawed rubies in the armor. Since I have a lot of stst points saved (62 as of end of a3), those rubies really help out the life total.

The beetles really hurt quite a lot with 0 light res, but i just killed them from afar with fireball, and eventually was pleased to ID a 20 lres gc that helped a lot. Mid a2, i ID'd this rare ring which made we weep to not equip it.
70eG4QT.png


But it wasn't long before I took out duriel. I decided I didn't need to reduce psettings since I'm a sorc in normal with static field, and he was a total pushover. Blizzard to slow, statics in between and fireball to finish him off. Don't think I even had to heal myself or my merc. Felt good.
VGwCXS1.png


No scrolls of tp! But still nothing useful. I ended a2 at lvl 28.5. A2 felt more fun that a1. Even though its quite long it feels more varied in scenery and broken up more nicely. For example the false tombs take ages, but you can easily split them between play sessions. So I enjoyed it overall. And I'm sure have a decent offensive spell with leaf and fireball helped the enjoyment relative to a1 quite a lot.

In a3, I'm not sure if theres some reason the flayer shamans hurt worse in normal, but man they do hurt. I tried to keep my distance but the few times i did not do so were my closest NDEs so far. They would take me down to ~100 hp in about a half second of that infeno with my zero fire res.

But once i hit lvl 30, I got frozen orb and cold mastery. So I switched my gear to a 3 tir double axe, and 3os large shield with a tir and 2 diamonds. The single point forb doesnt really kill faster than fireball does with my leaf staff, but its nice to have some res and some chilling. The 8mpk really makes using forb much nicer too. In addition to the 22@ from this shield, ormus gave me a nice ring to use.
RBXDy3w.png


So now my resists are shored up pretty well with 47/35/59/28. Have no idea how or if I will get some decent resists in nm, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there!

Clearing the sewers was mega boring but everything went smoothly. No runes at all in LK. But one od the council members in a3 was kind enough to drop me this.
Dp7PQwI.png


I kinda sorta would like to not use insight/spirit in this tourney, but no promises since I'm a big baby about mana issues. So we'll see. Meph hurt a decent bit, but went down fast of course, and hp never got down to half.
wxn0Jb6.png


Looking forward to a4! And especially looking forward to the first batch of crafts at the end of a1 nm. Very exciting. I've been thinking a lot about what I want to craft how I want to use my imbues and personalizations, but I'll probably save most of that till right before hell. Hope everyone is doing well! 🍻

Rich (BB code):
Forumite     Character         Class   Lvl   Progress
--------     ---------         -----   ---   --------
Skiff        ColdFever         Sorc    77    Guardian
Vang         *Spokane          Zon     81    Guardian
Norcim       Valryka           Zon     81    A2 H
Grisu        Lugh              Barb    79    A2 H
OldSoldier   GaranDarkslayer   Pal     ??    A1 H
PhineasB     Orange            Zon     74    A1 H
Pb_pal       Elding            Pal     66    A5 NM
Vildecor     Rowena            Sin     53    A2 NM
Luhkoh       Amaresu           Sorc    32    A4 N
Babyhell     ItsATrap          Sin     21    A2 N

Rich (BB code):
Forumite   Character   Class   Lvl   Progress
--------   ---------   -----   ---   --------
zemaj      OUGNecro    Nec     33    A3 N
Jocular    PopeJohn... Pal     48    A1 NM
Vang       Solidify    Sor     54    A1 NM
 
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