Pb_pal's Character/Post Archive
- Thread starter Pb_pal
- Start date
- Mar 19, 2020
- 3,349
- 1,404
- 113
TWD Redux - Sep 5, 2019
The team is back in action! Where we left off Ketto (Singer) and Bedoe (Liberator) had just finished NM, whereas Ribble (Lord of Mages) was prepping to hit Act V NM. I decided that here was no better way to get into the swing of things than to head out into Hell, and Ketto was the lucky recipient of that honour since Singers are WAY safer than Chargers.
Ketto - Singer
Ketto leveled up a bit on Pindle/Eldritch and reached level 74 before taking the plunge into Hell. Upon gaining Conqueror, his armor slot is open to S/U now so it was time for a bit of a re-shuffle gear-wise. He equipped the Spirit Shroud, and juggled some other equipment and charms to focus more on safety, allowing him to set out with respectable resists (53/38/75/19). He'll be taking on Hell on /p1 entirely since, well, he's a Singer and I don't want to go insane.
Killing speed is actually decent against the smaller monsters (fallen, Quill rats etc), but anything with higher life/physical resistance (yes you, zombies) still take a mana pot or two to get through. Corpsefire managed to kill the merc, but Ketto persevered and killed him easily enough before clearing out the rest of the Den and then moving on and killing Blood Raven.
Ketto then met his first unkillable (PI/CI) boss in the Cold Plains, and another in the Stony Field:
I knew this would be an issue when I picked the cold Iron Wolf as my mercenary since high PR monsters tend to be high CR as well, so now I'm just hoping it doesn't happen in a situation which is more dire. For now I'm lucky enough to be able to just leave the bosses behind to wander around to entertain themselves.
Treehead (Amp+Might) absolutely smoked the merc (sensing a pattern yet?
) and was quite a handful for Ketto as well. Luckily, since Superuniques (and champ packs too, for the record) can still be stunned - albeit only occasionally - it was doable with lots of potions and running. If Treehead hadn't been stunnable, there was no way Ketto would have survived as each successful hit on him took ~1/3 of his life bulb. Speaking of which, I learned something; War Cry can even stun PIs! I just assumed previosuly it wouldn't work, but he was stunning a PI goat pack into yesteryear, so that was delightful news to me.
The trip down the Countess' Tower was easy, netting us an Ort for our trouble. After that he decided to take a quick detour in the Pits and look what a double champ pack of devilkin/rogues spit out.
Well. That settles the debate for Bedoe's end-game charging weapon! Ketto finished off the run (hitting level 75 in the process) and then made this cute little toy for his brother.
Bottom of the barrell roll for resistances, but I can't really complain.
With renewed vigor, he set off for the jail. The Smith was toasted easily, and we found this cool hammer in the Catacombs. No use for it in this tournament, but I'm gonna hang on to it for a future rares-only build or something like that.
Andariel was easy but tedious, a recurring theme for Kettos Act boss fights. Black/Butcher's Pupil, plus a few town trips to heal and restock pots. She dropped Rockfleece, which could be cool but I already have better options so it won't see any use.
--
Team Parmecia (Pb_pal) - 178pts
Bedoe - (Paladin: CSkills/Off.Auras - 7/2) - lvl 71 - Act V NM - 62pts
Ketto - (Barb: Warcries/Mast. - 7/2) - lvl 75 - Act I Hell - 68pts
Ribble - (Necro: Summ/Curse - 10) - lvl 61 - Act V NM - 48pts
The team is back in action! Where we left off Ketto (Singer) and Bedoe (Liberator) had just finished NM, whereas Ribble (Lord of Mages) was prepping to hit Act V NM. I decided that here was no better way to get into the swing of things than to head out into Hell, and Ketto was the lucky recipient of that honour since Singers are WAY safer than Chargers.
Ketto - Singer
Ketto leveled up a bit on Pindle/Eldritch and reached level 74 before taking the plunge into Hell. Upon gaining Conqueror, his armor slot is open to S/U now so it was time for a bit of a re-shuffle gear-wise. He equipped the Spirit Shroud, and juggled some other equipment and charms to focus more on safety, allowing him to set out with respectable resists (53/38/75/19). He'll be taking on Hell on /p1 entirely since, well, he's a Singer and I don't want to go insane.
Killing speed is actually decent against the smaller monsters (fallen, Quill rats etc), but anything with higher life/physical resistance (yes you, zombies) still take a mana pot or two to get through. Corpsefire managed to kill the merc, but Ketto persevered and killed him easily enough before clearing out the rest of the Den and then moving on and killing Blood Raven.
Ketto then met his first unkillable (PI/CI) boss in the Cold Plains, and another in the Stony Field:
I knew this would be an issue when I picked the cold Iron Wolf as my mercenary since high PR monsters tend to be high CR as well, so now I'm just hoping it doesn't happen in a situation which is more dire. For now I'm lucky enough to be able to just leave the bosses behind to wander around to entertain themselves.
Treehead (Amp+Might) absolutely smoked the merc (sensing a pattern yet?
) and was quite a handful for Ketto as well. Luckily, since Superuniques (and champ packs too, for the record) can still be stunned - albeit only occasionally - it was doable with lots of potions and running. If Treehead hadn't been stunnable, there was no way Ketto would have survived as each successful hit on him took ~1/3 of his life bulb. Speaking of which, I learned something; War Cry can even stun PIs! I just assumed previosuly it wouldn't work, but he was stunning a PI goat pack into yesteryear, so that was delightful news to me.The trip down the Countess' Tower was easy, netting us an Ort for our trouble. After that he decided to take a quick detour in the Pits and look what a double champ pack of devilkin/rogues spit out.
Well. That settles the debate for Bedoe's end-game charging weapon! Ketto finished off the run (hitting level 75 in the process) and then made this cute little toy for his brother.
Bottom of the barrell roll for resistances, but I can't really complain.
With renewed vigor, he set off for the jail. The Smith was toasted easily, and we found this cool hammer in the Catacombs. No use for it in this tournament, but I'm gonna hang on to it for a future rares-only build or something like that.
Andariel was easy but tedious, a recurring theme for Kettos Act boss fights. Black/Butcher's Pupil, plus a few town trips to heal and restock pots. She dropped Rockfleece, which could be cool but I already have better options so it won't see any use.
--
Team Parmecia (Pb_pal) - 178pts
Bedoe - (Paladin: CSkills/Off.Auras - 7/2) - lvl 71 - Act V NM - 62pts
Ketto - (Barb: Warcries/Mast. - 7/2) - lvl 75 - Act I Hell - 68pts
Ribble - (Necro: Summ/Curse - 10) - lvl 61 - Act V NM - 48pts
- Mar 19, 2020
- 3,349
- 1,404
- 113
TWD Redux - Oct 15, 2019
Ribble - Lord of Mages
Ribble decided to keep his momentum going and headed out into Hell. First off was a big re-gear for survival. I got lucky shopping Anya for a while and he managed to make what I can only assume will be his end-game armour. It even matches his red wand!
We kept the players setting dialed down to /p1, and that kept things nice and smooth. The merc is equipped now with Rockstopper/Toothrow/Hone Sundan (AmnShaelShael) so he just rips things apart. Surprisingly, the mages still have pretty decent power too, I just have to keep a bit of a closer eye on immunities and mage types. Revive is also maxed now, and they're performing great. I've run out of things to max in the standard build, so I'll pump Fire Golem for now until the mana cost tops out. The only downside to the build is that you can lose huge chunks of your army pretty easily if they stray while you progress, especially the mages. it's really not a big deal, but a bit of a nuisance since mages aren't that quick on the uptake and apparently don't know how to play "follow the leader" very well.
Smooth sailing as Corpsefire, Blood Raven, and Treehead all met their demise and we freed ol' Cain for the last time. Check out this sweet stair trap in the Countess' Tower.
Luckily, Ribble was able to sidestep out of the way while keeping the monsters' focus on his own army. He kept Decrep on them at all times and then it was just a waiting game. The rest of the Tower was uneventful, as was the Coutness' drop - an Eth. The rest of the act flew, the Smith was killed, and the path to Andariel cleared. she went down like a pile of bricks and left nothing useful in her wake.
The desert was equally boring as our army just tore right through. Radament fell easily, and we unsummoned all but the merc to get through the Maggot Lair. Once we found Coldworm, we resummoned the army in her chamber and the queen was easy pickings. Decrepify remains the main curse of use, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. The mages still do damage without LR and the control that Decrep offers is just too valuable to pass up.
Through the CVT we took a bunch of vipers with us as Revives, and that let us give Fangskin a taste of his own medicine.
The army plowed their way through to the tombs where a double draw of Unravellers made things quite slow (physically resistant vampires were the third type, which didn't help things). It was never dangerous as I just raised new skeletons from theirs to keep the corpses away. I put the /p setting up to 3 for the Duriel fight, but he still dropped crap.
CG+Decrep+CB from Hone Sundan is just too powerful, it's really insane. Ribble will pause here now as the rest of the team catches up.
---
Team Parmecia (Pb_pal) - 204pts
Bedoe - (Paladin: CSkills/Off.Auras - 7/2) - lvl 71 - Act V NM - 62pts
Ketto - (Barb: Warcries/Mast. - 7/2) - lvl 75 - Act I Hell - 68pts
Ribble - (Necro: Summ/Curse - 10) - lvl 76 - Act II Hell - 74pts
Ribble - Lord of Mages
Ribble decided to keep his momentum going and headed out into Hell. First off was a big re-gear for survival. I got lucky shopping Anya for a while and he managed to make what I can only assume will be his end-game armour. It even matches his red wand!
We kept the players setting dialed down to /p1, and that kept things nice and smooth. The merc is equipped now with Rockstopper/Toothrow/Hone Sundan (AmnShaelShael) so he just rips things apart. Surprisingly, the mages still have pretty decent power too, I just have to keep a bit of a closer eye on immunities and mage types. Revive is also maxed now, and they're performing great. I've run out of things to max in the standard build, so I'll pump Fire Golem for now until the mana cost tops out. The only downside to the build is that you can lose huge chunks of your army pretty easily if they stray while you progress, especially the mages. it's really not a big deal, but a bit of a nuisance since mages aren't that quick on the uptake and apparently don't know how to play "follow the leader" very well.
Smooth sailing as Corpsefire, Blood Raven, and Treehead all met their demise and we freed ol' Cain for the last time. Check out this sweet stair trap in the Countess' Tower.
Luckily, Ribble was able to sidestep out of the way while keeping the monsters' focus on his own army. He kept Decrep on them at all times and then it was just a waiting game. The rest of the Tower was uneventful, as was the Coutness' drop - an Eth. The rest of the act flew, the Smith was killed, and the path to Andariel cleared. she went down like a pile of bricks and left nothing useful in her wake.
The desert was equally boring as our army just tore right through. Radament fell easily, and we unsummoned all but the merc to get through the Maggot Lair. Once we found Coldworm, we resummoned the army in her chamber and the queen was easy pickings. Decrepify remains the main curse of use, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. The mages still do damage without LR and the control that Decrep offers is just too valuable to pass up.
Through the CVT we took a bunch of vipers with us as Revives, and that let us give Fangskin a taste of his own medicine.
The army plowed their way through to the tombs where a double draw of Unravellers made things quite slow (physically resistant vampires were the third type, which didn't help things). It was never dangerous as I just raised new skeletons from theirs to keep the corpses away. I put the /p setting up to 3 for the Duriel fight, but he still dropped crap.
CG+Decrep+CB from Hone Sundan is just too powerful, it's really insane. Ribble will pause here now as the rest of the team catches up.
---
Team Parmecia (Pb_pal) - 204pts
Bedoe - (Paladin: CSkills/Off.Auras - 7/2) - lvl 71 - Act V NM - 62pts
Ketto - (Barb: Warcries/Mast. - 7/2) - lvl 75 - Act I Hell - 68pts
Ribble - (Necro: Summ/Curse - 10) - lvl 76 - Act II Hell - 74pts
- Mar 19, 2020
- 3,349
- 1,404
- 113
TWD Redux - Dec 3, 2019
Bedoe - Liberator (Charge/BH)
The jungles are not exactly a nice place to be a Charger, that's for sure. Luckily they ARE a good place for BH, so the plan is to lay down a field of hammers when the swarms come and then charge off any stragglers that survive. Bedoe is beginning to get quite squishy, so care must be taken to not advance too quickly and get myself into trouble. Easy does it as we found the figurine (getting Bedoe to officially over 1k life) and quickly down to Sszark. The merc tanked him valiantly while Bedoe would hit a charge, back up, and repeat.
He found a Bverrit Keep, and then the Gidbinn before heading down into the Flayer Dungeon. It was (somewhat expectedly) asbolutely CRAMMED with dolls, which is one of the more terrifying moster rolls for a Liberator. BH runs the risk of exploding too many too near (and is a pain in the hallways), and Charging them is basically asking to receive your deeds papers expressly delivered. Basically our option was to carefully follow the merc and support him when I could. I have no screenies from in there as I was basically constantly hovering the Full Rejuvs and my panic meter was topped out almost constantly. Bedoe did make it through and grab the brain, but not without a couple changes of pants and profuse sweating.
Back out into the jungles it was better, he absolutely tore through Stormtree before making a pit stop at Sarina's house and then clearing out the Sewers. The council was carefully led out 1 by 1 and charged, which worked well as you can see by the trail of corpses
The final member was of course PI, so we got the merc to tank and hammered him down before finding our way to Meph.
BH did the trick easily, and Bedoe now awaits his brother in the Pandemonium Fortress at level 78.
----
Ketto - Singer
First things first he made himself a nice new helm, which bolstered his surivivability quite handsomely
Ketto is beginning to really slow down. Whatever part of me decided that a good PI solution was an A3 merc I don't know, but I'm stuck with it now. Ketto himself kills decently, but it still requires a constant influx of mana potions and can get a bit tedious.
Radament soon died without issue, and it was into the Maggot Lair when everything basically ground to a halt. Waiting for the Iron Wolf to deal with all the PI bugs was, well, boring. Basically Ketto tanked and the merc slowly whittled them (or sometimes just walked back and forth doing absolutely nothing for extended periods of time). Luckily I found the correct path relatively quickly, so the duo worked their way down and them Ketto could let loose in the main chamber.
The CVT went better than expected, and Fangskin was gracious enough to stay put on his altar so we could clear the room first.
After our forced lesson in patience in the Maggot Lair, I decided that the Arcane Sanctuary would be handled differently. Ketto just howled the PI ghosts away instead of waiting for the merc to deal with them. He did find a Fal, which is nice. I could make a Lionheart for Bedoe now, but I'm going to hold off since the CBF from his Hawkmail is currently too valuable to give up.
The true tomb was easy as we found Duriel's chamber almost immediately, but I can't say the fight was that simple. His Holy Freeze made it impossible to use the 'Black' flail we've been using for boss fights, as Duriel kept putting Ketto into hit recovery, and the merc is next to useless in there (we left him dead after his fourth death). Our only option was War Cry and mana pots.
It was slow and quite dangerous, as basically the only option was the War Cry and run in circles pounding mana pots. After I lost count of town trips, and almost died a few times, eventually the strategy did prove successful and it was off the the jungles at level 76.
---
Team Parmecia (Pb_pal) - 228pts
Bedoe - (Paladin: CSkills/Off.Auras - 7/2) - lvl 78 - Act IV Hell- 80pts
Ketto - (Barb: Warcries/Mast. - 7/2) - lvl 76 - Act III Hell - 74pts
Ribble - (Necro: Summ/Curse - 10) - lvl 76 - Act III Hell - 74pts
Bedoe - Liberator (Charge/BH)
The jungles are not exactly a nice place to be a Charger, that's for sure. Luckily they ARE a good place for BH, so the plan is to lay down a field of hammers when the swarms come and then charge off any stragglers that survive. Bedoe is beginning to get quite squishy, so care must be taken to not advance too quickly and get myself into trouble. Easy does it as we found the figurine (getting Bedoe to officially over 1k life) and quickly down to Sszark. The merc tanked him valiantly while Bedoe would hit a charge, back up, and repeat.
He found a Bverrit Keep, and then the Gidbinn before heading down into the Flayer Dungeon. It was (somewhat expectedly) asbolutely CRAMMED with dolls, which is one of the more terrifying moster rolls for a Liberator. BH runs the risk of exploding too many too near (and is a pain in the hallways), and Charging them is basically asking to receive your deeds papers expressly delivered. Basically our option was to carefully follow the merc and support him when I could. I have no screenies from in there as I was basically constantly hovering the Full Rejuvs and my panic meter was topped out almost constantly. Bedoe did make it through and grab the brain, but not without a couple changes of pants and profuse sweating.
Back out into the jungles it was better, he absolutely tore through Stormtree before making a pit stop at Sarina's house and then clearing out the Sewers. The council was carefully led out 1 by 1 and charged, which worked well as you can see by the trail of corpses
The final member was of course PI, so we got the merc to tank and hammered him down before finding our way to Meph.
BH did the trick easily, and Bedoe now awaits his brother in the Pandemonium Fortress at level 78.
----
Ketto - Singer
First things first he made himself a nice new helm, which bolstered his surivivability quite handsomely
Ketto is beginning to really slow down. Whatever part of me decided that a good PI solution was an A3 merc I don't know, but I'm stuck with it now. Ketto himself kills decently, but it still requires a constant influx of mana potions and can get a bit tedious.
Radament soon died without issue, and it was into the Maggot Lair when everything basically ground to a halt. Waiting for the Iron Wolf to deal with all the PI bugs was, well, boring. Basically Ketto tanked and the merc slowly whittled them (or sometimes just walked back and forth doing absolutely nothing for extended periods of time). Luckily I found the correct path relatively quickly, so the duo worked their way down and them Ketto could let loose in the main chamber.
The CVT went better than expected, and Fangskin was gracious enough to stay put on his altar so we could clear the room first.
After our forced lesson in patience in the Maggot Lair, I decided that the Arcane Sanctuary would be handled differently. Ketto just howled the PI ghosts away instead of waiting for the merc to deal with them. He did find a Fal, which is nice. I could make a Lionheart for Bedoe now, but I'm going to hold off since the CBF from his Hawkmail is currently too valuable to give up.
The true tomb was easy as we found Duriel's chamber almost immediately, but I can't say the fight was that simple. His Holy Freeze made it impossible to use the 'Black' flail we've been using for boss fights, as Duriel kept putting Ketto into hit recovery, and the merc is next to useless in there (we left him dead after his fourth death). Our only option was War Cry and mana pots.
It was slow and quite dangerous, as basically the only option was the War Cry and run in circles pounding mana pots. After I lost count of town trips, and almost died a few times, eventually the strategy did prove successful and it was off the the jungles at level 76.
---
Team Parmecia (Pb_pal) - 228pts
Bedoe - (Paladin: CSkills/Off.Auras - 7/2) - lvl 78 - Act IV Hell- 80pts
Ketto - (Barb: Warcries/Mast. - 7/2) - lvl 76 - Act III Hell - 74pts
Ribble - (Necro: Summ/Curse - 10) - lvl 76 - Act III Hell - 74pts
- Mar 19, 2020
- 3,349
- 1,404
- 113
TWD Redux - Dec 11, 2019
Ketto - Singer
Ahhh, the jungles; a Singer's best friend! Swarming monsters with low HP, even Jelani the emabrrasingly weak and fragile Iron Wolf has enough firepower to be (somewhat) useful here.
The Jade Figurine was found promptly, and the first challenge came (as usual) with Sszark. he pushed the duo way back, but once Ketto got some stuns to land it was much easier. Ketto hit level 77 in the Great Marsh and officially surpassed 3k life. I feel like it's quite obvious, but he's extremely safe. Pretty much everything is stunned all the time and although killing is slow, it is very much steady. The Flayer Jungle was a cakewalk, the Gidbinn grabbed, and an easy trip through to Endugu. Stormtree's group killed the merc (which was irrelevant since Stormtree was CI anyways) and I had to be a bit careful due to his mana burn but with liberal use of mana pots we had no real issue with him.
Sarina rolled a combination of mods that would have made most characters need a change of pants, but not Ketto:
War Cry truly is an impressive skill. It's a good thing it isn't more powerful, or it would be absolutely gamebreaking. Still a bit of a tricky fight, but it was essentially just a 1v1 with her, as her minions (and those spiders) were completely immobilized.
A quick trip to the sewers (and I mean quick, we could see the lvl 2 entrance from the stairs), then off to the council. We pulled them out a couple minons at a time and slowly whittled them down, as per usual. The Durance was relatively painless, and quick, and after a rout of Bremm it was time for Mephy.
The merc died, and Ketto opted for the same strategy he used on Duriel; lots and LOTS of War Cry and mana pots. He went down easily enough, dropped nothing of use, and Ketto was off the the underworld at 78.
I was worried for Act 4, but it turned out to not be too painful after all (mostly thanks to there being no gloams to speak of). Found some Warshrikes on the PoD. Cool find, but ultimately useless. Izual killed the merc (surprise surprise!) but he went down to War Cry much faster than I expected.
Through the RoF and we eventually ran into Hephasto.
Mana burn is a real pain, there was lots of juking and jiving (and plain old running away) trying to get him focused on the merc so I could spam him with WC. Eventually he did die, and the HF left us a pitiful Lum.
The CS was not as bad as I thought it would be. OKs are annoying as anything as you can't Taunt them out, and some of the bosses like this CI Stone Skin/Mana Burn jerk sure could take a while.
As you can see, even though they take an age to kill, it works decently enough to pin them in a corner and just spam away until they finally fall.
Vizier dropped easily, De Seis was cornered once his minions had been led away and dealt with. Infector's pack was the trickiest. We managed to pull a bunch of his minions out while he watched from across the lava. He was dispatched easily enough after that.
The fight with Diablo was quite easy actually.
Snugged up in front of the hose, Ketto only had to move if D used his Firestorm, or pop a quick pot if Diablo smacked him a few times in a row. It took a while, Jelani stayed down for a nice long dirt nap, but we got him. The drop was useless of course, but no matter. On to the final act!
---
Team Parmecia (Pb_pal) - 237pts
Bedoe - (Paladin: CSkills/Off.Auras - 7/2) - lvl 78 - Act IV Hell- 80pts
Ketto - (Barb: Warcries/Mast. - 7/2) - lvl 78 - Act III Hell - 83pts
Ribble - (Necro: Summ/Curse - 10) - lvl 76 - Act III Hell - 74pts
Ketto - Singer
Ahhh, the jungles; a Singer's best friend! Swarming monsters with low HP, even Jelani the emabrrasingly weak and fragile Iron Wolf has enough firepower to be (somewhat) useful here.
The Jade Figurine was found promptly, and the first challenge came (as usual) with Sszark. he pushed the duo way back, but once Ketto got some stuns to land it was much easier. Ketto hit level 77 in the Great Marsh and officially surpassed 3k life. I feel like it's quite obvious, but he's extremely safe. Pretty much everything is stunned all the time and although killing is slow, it is very much steady. The Flayer Jungle was a cakewalk, the Gidbinn grabbed, and an easy trip through to Endugu. Stormtree's group killed the merc (which was irrelevant since Stormtree was CI anyways) and I had to be a bit careful due to his mana burn but with liberal use of mana pots we had no real issue with him.
Sarina rolled a combination of mods that would have made most characters need a change of pants, but not Ketto:
War Cry truly is an impressive skill. It's a good thing it isn't more powerful, or it would be absolutely gamebreaking. Still a bit of a tricky fight, but it was essentially just a 1v1 with her, as her minions (and those spiders) were completely immobilized.
A quick trip to the sewers (and I mean quick, we could see the lvl 2 entrance from the stairs), then off to the council. We pulled them out a couple minons at a time and slowly whittled them down, as per usual. The Durance was relatively painless, and quick, and after a rout of Bremm it was time for Mephy.
The merc died, and Ketto opted for the same strategy he used on Duriel; lots and LOTS of War Cry and mana pots. He went down easily enough, dropped nothing of use, and Ketto was off the the underworld at 78.
I was worried for Act 4, but it turned out to not be too painful after all (mostly thanks to there being no gloams to speak of). Found some Warshrikes on the PoD. Cool find, but ultimately useless. Izual killed the merc (surprise surprise!) but he went down to War Cry much faster than I expected.
Through the RoF and we eventually ran into Hephasto.
Mana burn is a real pain, there was lots of juking and jiving (and plain old running away) trying to get him focused on the merc so I could spam him with WC. Eventually he did die, and the HF left us a pitiful Lum.
The CS was not as bad as I thought it would be. OKs are annoying as anything as you can't Taunt them out, and some of the bosses like this CI Stone Skin/Mana Burn jerk sure could take a while.
As you can see, even though they take an age to kill, it works decently enough to pin them in a corner and just spam away until they finally fall.
Vizier dropped easily, De Seis was cornered once his minions had been led away and dealt with. Infector's pack was the trickiest. We managed to pull a bunch of his minions out while he watched from across the lava. He was dispatched easily enough after that.
The fight with Diablo was quite easy actually.
Snugged up in front of the hose, Ketto only had to move if D used his Firestorm, or pop a quick pot if Diablo smacked him a few times in a row. It took a while, Jelani stayed down for a nice long dirt nap, but we got him. The drop was useless of course, but no matter. On to the final act!
---
Team Parmecia (Pb_pal) - 237pts
Bedoe - (Paladin: CSkills/Off.Auras - 7/2) - lvl 78 - Act IV Hell- 80pts
Ketto - (Barb: Warcries/Mast. - 7/2) - lvl 78 - Act III Hell - 83pts
Ribble - (Necro: Summ/Curse - 10) - lvl 76 - Act III Hell - 74pts
- Mar 19, 2020
- 3,349
- 1,404
- 113
TWD Redux - Dec 19, 2019
Ribble - Lord of Mages
Time for Ribble to stretch his legs after all that progress by his brothers.
Found the figurine straight away as he was gathering up his army and then straight on through to Sszark for our first big fight of the act:
Decrep kept him muted enough, while the mages took up arms against him. It's pretty easy going in the jungles for Ribble, his army is typically around 20 units including revives, so there is plenty of cover for Ribble out there. First cool (but useless) find came in the Flayer Dungeon with some Dracs. Bedoe unfortunately can't equip them, but it's still cool to see a drop like that.
Endugu fell easily, and up through Stromtree without too much trouble (though he put a major dent in the army). The Ruined Temple is always a little bit scary in tournaments, and it kept true to form here with a nice ambush by a Champ pack of Rogues.
Could have been much worse, but the mages are a very good distraction so Ribble was left alone. One good thing about mages is that in these situations they always try to fan out, which means they will become targets first as long as Ribble stays put. Once that pack was over with we easily bottlenecked Sarina into the doorway. grabbed the Tome and headed through the Sewers.
The Council absolutely wrecked my mages, so it was basically up to the merc to finish them off solo. He's quite strong and durable though, so it wasn't much trouble in the end with some careful separation of the pack. The Durance was of course next, and it was absolutely swarming with dolls. Normally this would be big trouble but the sheer size of Ribble's army meant that he was always a comfortable distance from their death explosions. Soon it was time for Meph himself.
As always, Decrep, Clay Golem, and a CB-heavy merc meant easy pickings. Drop was crap, however.
--
Act 4! Not much to say for the beginnings, as Izual was found and killed without any issue. The army plodded their way along through the RoF. We drew Spawners and Maggots in there which slowed things down, but the danger was always quite low. Having such a large army usually provides ample cover and very safe gameplay, but there are times it becomes problematic. One such problem was on display once we reached Hephasto
It's all but impossible to stealthily approach monsters with such a huge army, ensuring that any and all monsters nearby will awaken and come join the fun. This can sometimes lead to the army getting its attentions divided too much, making the firepower too dispersed to keep up with the onslaught. The above screenie was taken once things had calmed down, but it got a little bit hectic for a while there getting swarmed by sheer numbers of spawners/maggot/venom lords. I was thankful for the relatively benign monster rolls here, because had they been more dangerous (blunderbore types, for example) Ribble would have been in some trouble. HF gave us a Lum, btw. Onwards to the CS!
The CS was... interesting. Here is a typical screenie of what happened in there; a battle of curses:
We had to use the laneways to bottleneck monsters or else we would get completely overrun. The problem with this is it made it tough to concentrate our firepower where we needed it. What I'm saying is; it was slow. The seals themselves were surprisingly no problem as The Vizier, De Seis, and Infector all fell in short order. Diablo spawned and my army valiantly took up ranks working as a beautiful cohesive unit all bravely facing down the Lord of Terror in unison:
Just kidding. That screenshot, though epic looking, is actually just the moment before a firestorm completely decimated my entire army. Luckily all Ribble need is a merc, CG, and Decrep and it was over.
One act to go!
----
Bedoe - Liberator (Charge/BH)
Feeling great I went to get our final team member through the underworld and into Act V.
Carefully, carefully out. BH is being used more and more as we need it to quell big groups while we set up for charging.
..
Woops
I have no good excuse for that one, really. I got stuck switching between weapon switches and didn't pot quick enough. It was a minion of an extra strong boss who I had killed, but basically the merc went down and Bedoe got swarmed, which with as fragile as a character as he is, was fatal.
Quite frankly he got MUCH further than I thought he would. The build is very strong, but I just didn't have good enough gear (or pay enough attention) in the end. One day I might try out a fully twinked Liberator to see how it fares. For now, it will be up to Bedoe's brothers to avenge him.
---
Team Parmecia (Pb_pal) - 246pts
Bedoe - (Paladin: CSkills/Off.Auras - 7/2) - lvl 78 - Act IV Hell- 80pts (RIP)
Ketto - (Barb: Warcries/Mast. - 7/2) - lvl 78 - Act V Hell - 83pts
Ribble - (Necro: Summ/Curse - 10) - lvl 78 - Act V Hell - 83pts
Ribble - Lord of Mages
Time for Ribble to stretch his legs after all that progress by his brothers.
Found the figurine straight away as he was gathering up his army and then straight on through to Sszark for our first big fight of the act:
Decrep kept him muted enough, while the mages took up arms against him. It's pretty easy going in the jungles for Ribble, his army is typically around 20 units including revives, so there is plenty of cover for Ribble out there. First cool (but useless) find came in the Flayer Dungeon with some Dracs. Bedoe unfortunately can't equip them, but it's still cool to see a drop like that.
Endugu fell easily, and up through Stromtree without too much trouble (though he put a major dent in the army). The Ruined Temple is always a little bit scary in tournaments, and it kept true to form here with a nice ambush by a Champ pack of Rogues.
Could have been much worse, but the mages are a very good distraction so Ribble was left alone. One good thing about mages is that in these situations they always try to fan out, which means they will become targets first as long as Ribble stays put. Once that pack was over with we easily bottlenecked Sarina into the doorway. grabbed the Tome and headed through the Sewers.
The Council absolutely wrecked my mages, so it was basically up to the merc to finish them off solo. He's quite strong and durable though, so it wasn't much trouble in the end with some careful separation of the pack. The Durance was of course next, and it was absolutely swarming with dolls. Normally this would be big trouble but the sheer size of Ribble's army meant that he was always a comfortable distance from their death explosions. Soon it was time for Meph himself.
As always, Decrep, Clay Golem, and a CB-heavy merc meant easy pickings. Drop was crap, however.
--
Act 4! Not much to say for the beginnings, as Izual was found and killed without any issue. The army plodded their way along through the RoF. We drew Spawners and Maggots in there which slowed things down, but the danger was always quite low. Having such a large army usually provides ample cover and very safe gameplay, but there are times it becomes problematic. One such problem was on display once we reached Hephasto
It's all but impossible to stealthily approach monsters with such a huge army, ensuring that any and all monsters nearby will awaken and come join the fun. This can sometimes lead to the army getting its attentions divided too much, making the firepower too dispersed to keep up with the onslaught. The above screenie was taken once things had calmed down, but it got a little bit hectic for a while there getting swarmed by sheer numbers of spawners/maggot/venom lords. I was thankful for the relatively benign monster rolls here, because had they been more dangerous (blunderbore types, for example) Ribble would have been in some trouble. HF gave us a Lum, btw. Onwards to the CS!
The CS was... interesting. Here is a typical screenie of what happened in there; a battle of curses:
We had to use the laneways to bottleneck monsters or else we would get completely overrun. The problem with this is it made it tough to concentrate our firepower where we needed it. What I'm saying is; it was slow. The seals themselves were surprisingly no problem as The Vizier, De Seis, and Infector all fell in short order. Diablo spawned and my army valiantly took up ranks working as a beautiful cohesive unit all bravely facing down the Lord of Terror in unison:
Just kidding. That screenshot, though epic looking, is actually just the moment before a firestorm completely decimated my entire army. Luckily all Ribble need is a merc, CG, and Decrep and it was over.
One act to go!
----
Bedoe - Liberator (Charge/BH)
Feeling great I went to get our final team member through the underworld and into Act V.
Carefully, carefully out. BH is being used more and more as we need it to quell big groups while we set up for charging.
..
Woops
I have no good excuse for that one, really. I got stuck switching between weapon switches and didn't pot quick enough. It was a minion of an extra strong boss who I had killed, but basically the merc went down and Bedoe got swarmed, which with as fragile as a character as he is, was fatal.
Quite frankly he got MUCH further than I thought he would. The build is very strong, but I just didn't have good enough gear (or pay enough attention) in the end. One day I might try out a fully twinked Liberator to see how it fares. For now, it will be up to Bedoe's brothers to avenge him.
---
Team Parmecia (Pb_pal) - 246pts
Bedoe - (Paladin: CSkills/Off.Auras - 7/2) - lvl 78 - Act IV Hell- 80pts (RIP)
Ketto - (Barb: Warcries/Mast. - 7/2) - lvl 78 - Act V Hell - 83pts
Ribble - (Necro: Summ/Curse - 10) - lvl 78 - Act V Hell - 83pts
- Mar 19, 2020
- 3,349
- 1,404
- 113
TWD Redux - Jan 16, 2020
Ribble - Lord of Mages
Ready to avenge his fallen brother, Ribble set out into the final act.
Quill rats in the foothills made for very careful steps. Ribble is very safe behind his army, but if he gets exposed things get dangerous REALLY quickly. Soon enough Shenk was dead, Eldritch pinged him to 79 and he easily cruised through and saved the barbarian prisoners. Thresh Socket soon followed his brothers into the afterlife and it was down into the caverns. Ribble lucked out and drew no gloams in the Frozen River, so it was an easy, revive-fueled trek to save Anya. Next up he revived Pindle's garden and took them in for a visit to their (former) master, before heading down to find Nihlathak.
Nihl's tower was fun, and Revives sure proved their worth in there. Not only in firepower, but in having a rather beefy safety net between Ribble and guys like this:
Not a chance my mages would have stood up to those guys, so revives are almost always an absolute must now. Ribble took a deep breath and headed down into the Halls of Vaught. I tried to advance slowly in case of vipers, but a crowd of 2 dozen AI-challenged automatons makes that... difficult.
Archers and night marauders showed up first, so far so good. We tried our best to inch forward and.... slayers! Nice! No vipers OR witches, which is pretty amazing! With that it was just about finding Nihls wing, and disposing of corpses by re-raising them before he could explode them. He was easy pickings without his horde by his side.
Up through the remaining ice caves, Ribble had a little bit of fun with Revives:
He gathered as big an army as he could, headed up to the summit and just ind of went for it. I didn't really know what to expect of the fight with the Ancients, but I knew for sure it would be sloppy. There is next to no way of separating the 3 with such a massive army, so I just ran back to the entrance and took a stand. It worked out decently, as Korlic quickly got surrounded, while the other two stayed far enough away not to trouble Ribble. Korlik fell first, and then things got trickier. My yetis started timing out, and my mages started getting decimated by Talic's whirling, but we held strong. Madawc fell next, and it was just a matter of making sure Talic didn't get too close to Ribble, and waiting for the merc to whittle him down. Done, level 80, on to the WSK!
Trip down to level 2 for the WP was met with little resistance (and favourable maps!). WSK 3 was a bit trickier with OKs and Witches to mess us up with all their cursing. No gloams though, so we made ti through (relatively) usncathed to the Throne. Throne was similarly gloam-free so it was soon time for the waves. Baal waves are super fun with a revive-heavy build. Basically you wipe a wave, revive them all, rinse and repeat.
Wave 1 was a breeze. Wave 2 was no problem either since we could steal their skellies. Wave 3 was easily overwheklmed and we took all their minions for some hydra fun against bartuc. The Venom lords found a similar fate and it was time for Lister.
This required more caution. We pulled back to try and take them on at least out of Baal's decrep range. I couldnt separate them out at all, so we had to take them on full pack vs full pack. Lister was cursed (uh oh) so it basically was just Ribble spamming Decrep to try and keep them at bay and hoping his giant army would prevail.
Eventually they did just that, and it was time for Baal. All my revives either timed out or got killed, as did a chunk of my mages, but that didn't matter. The last minion also pinged us to 81, cool!
Ribble has made it this far, it's time to cheese it up! Decrep + CG for one last boss fight meant I could comfortably pump it to /p3 for the nodrop, and the merc could poke away with his Hone Sundan and chip Baal down to nothingness.
Useless drop of course, but GUARDIAN!
Some thoughts on the build:
- Very safe build, and still entertaining as you're always swapping out revives.
- Keeping an army of sometimes 3 dozen is quite intensive, but always entertaining. Mages are surprisingly powerful the whole way through the game, but they definietly prosper with a meatshield of revives in front of them.
- Super happy with my choice to go with the merc equipment for the rewards, and I got lucky with being able to kit him out REALLY well (Kelpie, Hone Sundan, Toothrow, Rockstopper).
- The lack of resistances for Ribble was never an issue as most elemental attacks (gloams notwhithstanding) get soaked up by the (very replaceable) army.
I had a super fun time playing him through, I'm glad he made it all the way and can comfortably recommend LoM to anyone thinking about trying one out in a tournament. Next up, his barbarian brother!
--
Team Parmecia (Pb_pal) - 263pts
Bedoe - (Paladin: CSkills/Off.Auras - 7/2) - lvl 78 - Act IV Hell- 80pts (RIP)
Ketto - (Barb: Warcries/Mast. - 7/2) - lvl 78 - Act V Hell - 83pts
Ribble - (Necro: Summ/Curse - 10) - lvl 81 - Guardian - 100pts
Ribble - Lord of Mages
Ready to avenge his fallen brother, Ribble set out into the final act.
Quill rats in the foothills made for very careful steps. Ribble is very safe behind his army, but if he gets exposed things get dangerous REALLY quickly. Soon enough Shenk was dead, Eldritch pinged him to 79 and he easily cruised through and saved the barbarian prisoners. Thresh Socket soon followed his brothers into the afterlife and it was down into the caverns. Ribble lucked out and drew no gloams in the Frozen River, so it was an easy, revive-fueled trek to save Anya. Next up he revived Pindle's garden and took them in for a visit to their (former) master, before heading down to find Nihlathak.
Nihl's tower was fun, and Revives sure proved their worth in there. Not only in firepower, but in having a rather beefy safety net between Ribble and guys like this:
Not a chance my mages would have stood up to those guys, so revives are almost always an absolute must now. Ribble took a deep breath and headed down into the Halls of Vaught. I tried to advance slowly in case of vipers, but a crowd of 2 dozen AI-challenged automatons makes that... difficult.
Archers and night marauders showed up first, so far so good. We tried our best to inch forward and.... slayers! Nice! No vipers OR witches, which is pretty amazing! With that it was just about finding Nihls wing, and disposing of corpses by re-raising them before he could explode them. He was easy pickings without his horde by his side.
Up through the remaining ice caves, Ribble had a little bit of fun with Revives:
He gathered as big an army as he could, headed up to the summit and just ind of went for it. I didn't really know what to expect of the fight with the Ancients, but I knew for sure it would be sloppy. There is next to no way of separating the 3 with such a massive army, so I just ran back to the entrance and took a stand. It worked out decently, as Korlic quickly got surrounded, while the other two stayed far enough away not to trouble Ribble. Korlik fell first, and then things got trickier. My yetis started timing out, and my mages started getting decimated by Talic's whirling, but we held strong. Madawc fell next, and it was just a matter of making sure Talic didn't get too close to Ribble, and waiting for the merc to whittle him down. Done, level 80, on to the WSK!
Trip down to level 2 for the WP was met with little resistance (and favourable maps!). WSK 3 was a bit trickier with OKs and Witches to mess us up with all their cursing. No gloams though, so we made ti through (relatively) usncathed to the Throne. Throne was similarly gloam-free so it was soon time for the waves. Baal waves are super fun with a revive-heavy build. Basically you wipe a wave, revive them all, rinse and repeat.
Wave 1 was a breeze. Wave 2 was no problem either since we could steal their skellies. Wave 3 was easily overwheklmed and we took all their minions for some hydra fun against bartuc. The Venom lords found a similar fate and it was time for Lister.
This required more caution. We pulled back to try and take them on at least out of Baal's decrep range. I couldnt separate them out at all, so we had to take them on full pack vs full pack. Lister was cursed (uh oh) so it basically was just Ribble spamming Decrep to try and keep them at bay and hoping his giant army would prevail.
Eventually they did just that, and it was time for Baal. All my revives either timed out or got killed, as did a chunk of my mages, but that didn't matter. The last minion also pinged us to 81, cool!
Ribble has made it this far, it's time to cheese it up! Decrep + CG for one last boss fight meant I could comfortably pump it to /p3 for the nodrop, and the merc could poke away with his Hone Sundan and chip Baal down to nothingness.
Useless drop of course, but GUARDIAN!
Some thoughts on the build:
- Very safe build, and still entertaining as you're always swapping out revives.
- Keeping an army of sometimes 3 dozen is quite intensive, but always entertaining. Mages are surprisingly powerful the whole way through the game, but they definietly prosper with a meatshield of revives in front of them.
- Super happy with my choice to go with the merc equipment for the rewards, and I got lucky with being able to kit him out REALLY well (Kelpie, Hone Sundan, Toothrow, Rockstopper).
- The lack of resistances for Ribble was never an issue as most elemental attacks (gloams notwhithstanding) get soaked up by the (very replaceable) army.
I had a super fun time playing him through, I'm glad he made it all the way and can comfortably recommend LoM to anyone thinking about trying one out in a tournament. Next up, his barbarian brother!
--
Team Parmecia (Pb_pal) - 263pts
Bedoe - (Paladin: CSkills/Off.Auras - 7/2) - lvl 78 - Act IV Hell- 80pts (RIP)
Ketto - (Barb: Warcries/Mast. - 7/2) - lvl 78 - Act V Hell - 83pts
Ribble - (Necro: Summ/Curse - 10) - lvl 81 - Guardian - 100pts
- Mar 19, 2020
- 3,349
- 1,404
- 113
TWD Redux - Feb 25, 2020
Ketto - Singer
One final character, one final act. All that stands in Ketto's way is the need to free his barbarian homeland and he will find out which one of his brothers he will be joining. Will it be Ribble, sitting at the pub enjoying a well-earned brew? Or will it be Bedoe, resting for eternity in the great beyond? Only one way to find out!
Honestly though, I'm quite sick of constantly chugging mana pots so this will be nowhere near a full-clear of the final act. Ketto will be bee-lining his way through the quests as best he can. Hopefully that doesn't catch up with him too quickly!
Shenk was soon dispatched, and he moved quickly to free his brothers from their cages before heading down into the caverns below. Gloams in the frozen river really slowed us down, both in needing to taunt them all out individually to be killed, and Gloams having higher innate physical resistance so WC took a while to kill them. 75% LR made it safe enough, at least.
Frozenstein was easily handled, and Anya subsequently saved, before Ketto took a trip down to visit the skinny pale dude one final time. The trip down there was actually the hardest part of the journey, as once he hit the Halls of Vaught (and confirmed no Vipers) Ketto simply ran right in and took Nihlathak on face-to-face. Simple enough, moving on!
Up through the ancients way with ease. It's worth noting that up to this point Ketto has been EXTREMELY fortuitous with monster rolls. Only a couple PI draws here an there, but we've always found the entrance to the subsequent area before they became an issue which frankly is a godsend with such a slow killing character. He soon found himself at the summit, stocked up on pots (including a big pile left in each of the 4 corners of the maps), hit the altar and waited to find out what would greet him. None of the Ancients were PI, so it's a go!
The first one we could separate was Talic. He killed the merc, but was able to be dealt with decently. We used up an entire corner's worth of potion supplies in the process, but it worked and I was hopeful for the remaining two fights.
Apparently I forgot to take screenshots of them, but they both followed similar arcs. Madawc was separated next, followed finally by Korlic. The fights consisted of hitting them with the Butchers pupil offhand until bleeding started, and then warcrying them down very, VERY slowly. I used up all the pots I took as stockpiles except for 4 mana and 2 health, so I guessed (or rather got lucky with) the amount of resources needed quite well! The Ancients were ultimately much easier than I had anticipated and were essentially nothing more than a waiting game (this seems to be a major theme for Ketto). After a quick trip to town to get more pots and grab the merc, it was on to the WSK.
By this point I was getting pretty sick and tired of this build, honestly. It's slow, it's tedious to upkeep mana pots, and frankly, it's boringly safe. I mostly Howled and ran through the WSK, only stopping for big packs of easy to kill fetishes and the like. Ketto made it through to the throne, and soon cleared out the witches/oks/gloams that inhabited it. Time for the waves!
Colenzo we simply let bomb us and WC took care of them with me troubles. Achmel's skeletons were drawn out with Taunt and dispatched before going for the Unravellers. Easy enough so far. Wave 3 was mana burn, which was a bit of a concern. Ketto had to separate them out to groups of 1 or 2 and kill the minions off before going in for Bartuc. Wave 4 was surprisingly easy as they were gathered in a neat semi-circle and WC did the rest. This is what ti looks like when WC performs at its best:
Lister's group was their typical difficult selves. We started by pulling the minions out 1 at a time and killing them in safe isolation. Eventually Lister came to challenge us and...
Huh. Well, I tried, but Cursed + PI meant the merc couldn't do it and it was too dangerous, so Ketto swallowed his pride, parked Lister by the stairs, went back in and finished off his remaining minions, and then went for the big boss himself. It was at this point that it became evidently clear I had not actually planned out a certain very important part of Ketto's journey; how the hell was he going to kill Baal?
Baal's mana burning made it all but impossible to War Cry effectively, so I had to regroup. The merc is next to useless, but I do have a Butcher's pupil. Okay.. stat check:
8% chance to hit. Not good.
Battle cry decreases Baal's defense by 92%. Okay, that's doable. 25% OW on the Pupil, let's do this!
The plan consisted of healing in town, running in and war crying as much as possible until mana burned, then switching to BP, hitting baal with Battle Cry, and swinging away hoping to get some bleeding until either my mana pot refilled me for more yelling, or the clone showed up.. rinse and repeat.
It wasnt glamorous, it certainly wasnt quick, but it was pretty safe.
Exactly 62 minutes later (and yes that's on /p1):
There it is. 2/3, I'll take it. Drop was garbage rares, by the way.
Some thoughts:
- Singers are obnoxiously safe
- I don't recommend doing it without a MUCH bigger mana pool/insight, it's way too tedious to be constantly potting.
- I do not recommend an A3 merc with this build, immunities be damned it's too slow. And let's be real, he hardly dealt with PIs anyways.
- I'm really glad he's done, but it was a fun experience taking him through.
This was a super fun tournament overall, so I'm going to take an extra moment to thank PSYCHO for hosting, as well as everyone else that participated. And thank you as well to anyone who followed along with the team's travels, as few and far between as they were.
--
Team Parmecia (Pb_pal) - 280pts
Bedoe - (Paladin: CSkills/Off.Auras - 7/2) - lvl 78 - Act IV Hell- 80pts (RIP)
Ketto - (Barb: Warcries/Mast. - 7/2) - lvl 80 - Act V Hell - 100pts
Ribble - (Necro: Summ/Curse - 10) - lvl 81 - Guardian - 100pts
Ketto - Singer
One final character, one final act. All that stands in Ketto's way is the need to free his barbarian homeland and he will find out which one of his brothers he will be joining. Will it be Ribble, sitting at the pub enjoying a well-earned brew? Or will it be Bedoe, resting for eternity in the great beyond? Only one way to find out!
Honestly though, I'm quite sick of constantly chugging mana pots so this will be nowhere near a full-clear of the final act. Ketto will be bee-lining his way through the quests as best he can. Hopefully that doesn't catch up with him too quickly!
Shenk was soon dispatched, and he moved quickly to free his brothers from their cages before heading down into the caverns below. Gloams in the frozen river really slowed us down, both in needing to taunt them all out individually to be killed, and Gloams having higher innate physical resistance so WC took a while to kill them. 75% LR made it safe enough, at least.
Frozenstein was easily handled, and Anya subsequently saved, before Ketto took a trip down to visit the skinny pale dude one final time. The trip down there was actually the hardest part of the journey, as once he hit the Halls of Vaught (and confirmed no Vipers) Ketto simply ran right in and took Nihlathak on face-to-face. Simple enough, moving on!
Up through the ancients way with ease. It's worth noting that up to this point Ketto has been EXTREMELY fortuitous with monster rolls. Only a couple PI draws here an there, but we've always found the entrance to the subsequent area before they became an issue which frankly is a godsend with such a slow killing character. He soon found himself at the summit, stocked up on pots (including a big pile left in each of the 4 corners of the maps), hit the altar and waited to find out what would greet him. None of the Ancients were PI, so it's a go!
The first one we could separate was Talic. He killed the merc, but was able to be dealt with decently. We used up an entire corner's worth of potion supplies in the process, but it worked and I was hopeful for the remaining two fights.
Apparently I forgot to take screenshots of them, but they both followed similar arcs. Madawc was separated next, followed finally by Korlic. The fights consisted of hitting them with the Butchers pupil offhand until bleeding started, and then warcrying them down very, VERY slowly. I used up all the pots I took as stockpiles except for 4 mana and 2 health, so I guessed (or rather got lucky with) the amount of resources needed quite well! The Ancients were ultimately much easier than I had anticipated and were essentially nothing more than a waiting game (this seems to be a major theme for Ketto). After a quick trip to town to get more pots and grab the merc, it was on to the WSK.
By this point I was getting pretty sick and tired of this build, honestly. It's slow, it's tedious to upkeep mana pots, and frankly, it's boringly safe. I mostly Howled and ran through the WSK, only stopping for big packs of easy to kill fetishes and the like. Ketto made it through to the throne, and soon cleared out the witches/oks/gloams that inhabited it. Time for the waves!
Colenzo we simply let bomb us and WC took care of them with me troubles. Achmel's skeletons were drawn out with Taunt and dispatched before going for the Unravellers. Easy enough so far. Wave 3 was mana burn, which was a bit of a concern. Ketto had to separate them out to groups of 1 or 2 and kill the minions off before going in for Bartuc. Wave 4 was surprisingly easy as they were gathered in a neat semi-circle and WC did the rest. This is what ti looks like when WC performs at its best:
Lister's group was their typical difficult selves. We started by pulling the minions out 1 at a time and killing them in safe isolation. Eventually Lister came to challenge us and...
Huh. Well, I tried, but Cursed + PI meant the merc couldn't do it and it was too dangerous, so Ketto swallowed his pride, parked Lister by the stairs, went back in and finished off his remaining minions, and then went for the big boss himself. It was at this point that it became evidently clear I had not actually planned out a certain very important part of Ketto's journey; how the hell was he going to kill Baal?
Baal's mana burning made it all but impossible to War Cry effectively, so I had to regroup. The merc is next to useless, but I do have a Butcher's pupil. Okay.. stat check:
8% chance to hit. Not good.
Battle cry decreases Baal's defense by 92%. Okay, that's doable. 25% OW on the Pupil, let's do this!
The plan consisted of healing in town, running in and war crying as much as possible until mana burned, then switching to BP, hitting baal with Battle Cry, and swinging away hoping to get some bleeding until either my mana pot refilled me for more yelling, or the clone showed up.. rinse and repeat.
It wasnt glamorous, it certainly wasnt quick, but it was pretty safe.
Exactly 62 minutes later (and yes that's on /p1):
There it is. 2/3, I'll take it.
Drop was garbage rares, by the way.Some thoughts:
- Singers are obnoxiously safe
- I don't recommend doing it without a MUCH bigger mana pool/insight, it's way too tedious to be constantly potting.
- I do not recommend an A3 merc with this build, immunities be damned it's too slow. And let's be real, he hardly dealt with PIs anyways.
- I'm really glad he's done, but it was a fun experience taking him through.
This was a super fun tournament overall, so I'm going to take an extra moment to thank PSYCHO for hosting, as well as everyone else that participated. And thank you as well to anyone who followed along with the team's travels, as few and far between as they were.
--
Team Parmecia (Pb_pal) - 280pts
Bedoe - (Paladin: CSkills/Off.Auras - 7/2) - lvl 78 - Act IV Hell- 80pts (RIP)
Ketto - (Barb: Warcries/Mast. - 7/2) - lvl 80 - Act V Hell - 100pts
Ribble - (Necro: Summ/Curse - 10) - lvl 81 - Guardian - 100pts
- Mar 19, 2020
- 3,349
- 1,404
- 113
Passive Aggressive Tournament - Feb 15, 2015
Just a short update for Calabi. She has cleared up to the Cold Plains WP on /players5, still in full MF gear. Progress is slow but safe. The only moment that required much care so far was this:
I'm undecided on when to make the switch out of MF gear. Things aren't dangerous yet, but I have that looming feeling that something nasty will take me out and I'll regret not bumping up the safety...
My current plan is to fully MF until I find a suitable base for my 'Passion' sword. From then on I will switch to killing gear. Thoughts?
Here is her LCS as of right now on her shield switch. Obviously not an ideal situation, but can be vastly improved with fighting gear.
Conqueror Calabi the Axe-wielding Amazon, with Kasim the Blessed Aim Guard - lvl 75, Hell Cold Plains
Just a short update for Calabi. She has cleared up to the Cold Plains WP on /players5, still in full MF gear. Progress is slow but safe. The only moment that required much care so far was this:
I'm undecided on when to make the switch out of MF gear. Things aren't dangerous yet, but I have that looming feeling that something nasty will take me out and I'll regret not bumping up the safety...
My current plan is to fully MF until I find a suitable base for my 'Passion' sword. From then on I will switch to killing gear. Thoughts?
Here is her LCS as of right now on her shield switch. Obviously not an ideal situation, but can be vastly improved with fighting gear.
Conqueror Calabi the Axe-wielding Amazon, with Kasim the Blessed Aim Guard - lvl 75, Hell Cold Plains
- Mar 19, 2020
- 3,349
- 1,404
- 113
Passive Aggressive Tournament - Feb 17, 2015
Calabi picked up at the Cold plains WP and noticed the Cave right next to it. We decided to dash in and clear that first. Nothing notable, but it took a LONG time. Most of the time was spent babysitting Kasim since we were still in full MF gear and on /players 5. My goal is to try and do all of Hell (minus Act bosses who will be /p3, and Ancients on /p1) on this setting. Coldcrow was accompanied by 4 Archer boss packs in the vicinity, so that was fun. Luckily they were just far enough apart that we could deal with them seperately. Coldcrow herself was seperated and dealt with accordingly. Level 2 greeted us with a double skelly boss pack. The terrain, however, made this a cakewalk.
So after that was done, Calabi got to thinking. This is Hell, it's the last chance she has to clear all of these areas, why spend it aggravatingly grinding with full MF gear? What's the point of finding all those fun toys if we're not going to use them? It was time to show those monsters what she was truy made of! (Also, she doesn't want to die in full MF gear, when some extra safety could have saved her)
We figured this was a good time to give a more in-depth run-down of what she looks like (and we're going to blatantly and shamelessly steal the format from jiansonz' post. Thanks jian!).
Current stats:
That feels better. All remaining stat points will be going to vitality, as she now has enough strength(minus 1, but a charm will sort that out)/dex to equip any elite sword.
Primary Gear
* Artisan's(3 PTopaz=72%) Great Helm of the Fox(+10 life)
* Ocher(12%LR) Sharkskin Boots of Luck(33%)
* Cobalt(30%CR) Ring of Chance(15%)
* Doom Touch rare ring (see screenie above)
* Chromatic (26@res) Amulet of Luck(30%)
* Garnet(28%FR) Gauntlets of Fortune(24%)
* Goldwrap Battle Belt (53% gold find)
* 'Lionheart' Gothic Plate (Why a Gothic Plate you may ask? Well, she's been wearing one(see Kasim's armour) almost her whole journey, and it just felt right.)
* Wailing(100% flee) Balanced Knife of Meteor
* 'Rhyme' Bone Shield
Switch
* 'Humongous' Unique Giant Axe from way back in A1NM. It is used for the CB.
Charms are a smattering of resists mostly, with some MF and +life mixed in. Nothing too noteworthy except a perfect 8%@res large charm.
Kasim the Blessed Aim Guard
* 4-Topaz Gothic Plate(96%MF)
* Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest (10%LL, 15@res)
* 'Insight' Bec-de-Corbin (253%ED, +2 Critical Strike)
Calabi instantly felt much more durable, and she can even tank semi-reliably now. She still stays away from the scary monsters, but it's nice to be able to run in with her axe if she needs to and not feel super fragile. Resists on axe switch are 51/55/52/45. Now that Kasim has some leech (and 58%@res) he is WAY more durable, which means basically no more babysitting, and a much healthier bank account. On Kasim's kills she is still sporting a very healthy 355% MF. As we travel through Hell and the monsters get tougher, we will continue to swap out MF gear as needed for some added durability mostly in the form of +life/vitality (I'm looking at you, Peasant Crown!).
We also decided to bite the bullet and spend our 13 saved up skill points to max the valk. What a difference! This gal just does not die, and she kills things too! Notable to mention that with Kasim's aura and maxed Penetrate, she rarely, if ever, misses. She has really provided alot of stability to our group. The *only* downside is that Kasim doesn't get all the kills for his extra MF, but that's a small price to pay for the added durability to the whole party.
After the gear upgrades, there really isn't much more to mention about the journey. Progress is now much smoother and safer, and we were able to clear up to and including the Stony Field. Next time Calabi will see if she can free the old bird from his cage one last time.
Notable finds:
- 'Hexfire' Shamshir (Okay seriously, this game wanted me to play an echantress really badly)
- Eth 'Steeldriver' Great Maul
- We have only seen only one Elite sword so far. It was a socketed Champion Sword (Calabi's dream type), but unfortunately only had one hole in it.
- Only elite polearm so far was a low-quality Ogre Axe. We will hang onto it just in case an Um drops.
- We have hung onto a couple elite axes that dropped as a last resort for 'Passion'. I know Calabi's been using an axe this whole time, but she's a sword gal at heart, and wants her end-game weapon to be one. (Besides, I think axes are slower for zons than swords? I'm not really sure how it all works tbh.)
- We finally found our first Gem Shrine in the Cold Plains. Yes, our first. That took a while.
Conqueror Calabi the Axe-wielding Amazon, with Kasim the Blessed Aim Guard - lvl 77, Hell Stony Field
Calabi picked up at the Cold plains WP and noticed the Cave right next to it. We decided to dash in and clear that first. Nothing notable, but it took a LONG time. Most of the time was spent babysitting Kasim since we were still in full MF gear and on /players 5. My goal is to try and do all of Hell (minus Act bosses who will be /p3, and Ancients on /p1) on this setting. Coldcrow was accompanied by 4 Archer boss packs in the vicinity, so that was fun. Luckily they were just far enough apart that we could deal with them seperately. Coldcrow herself was seperated and dealt with accordingly. Level 2 greeted us with a double skelly boss pack. The terrain, however, made this a cakewalk.
So after that was done, Calabi got to thinking. This is Hell, it's the last chance she has to clear all of these areas, why spend it aggravatingly grinding with full MF gear? What's the point of finding all those fun toys if we're not going to use them? It was time to show those monsters what she was truy made of! (Also, she doesn't want to die in full MF gear, when some extra safety could have saved her
)We figured this was a good time to give a more in-depth run-down of what she looks like (and we're going to blatantly and shamelessly steal the format from jiansonz' post. Thanks jian!
).Current stats:
That feels better.
All remaining stat points will be going to vitality, as she now has enough strength(minus 1, but a charm will sort that out)/dex to equip any elite sword.Primary Gear
* Artisan's(3 PTopaz=72%) Great Helm of the Fox(+10 life)
* Ocher(12%LR) Sharkskin Boots of Luck(33%)
* Cobalt(30%CR) Ring of Chance(15%)
* Doom Touch rare ring (see screenie above)
* Chromatic (26@res) Amulet of Luck(30%)
* Garnet(28%FR) Gauntlets of Fortune(24%)
* Goldwrap Battle Belt (53% gold find)
* 'Lionheart' Gothic Plate (Why a Gothic Plate you may ask? Well, she's been wearing one(see Kasim's armour) almost her whole journey, and it just felt right.)
* Wailing(100% flee) Balanced Knife of Meteor
* 'Rhyme' Bone Shield
Switch
* 'Humongous' Unique Giant Axe from way back in A1NM. It is used for the CB.
Charms are a smattering of resists mostly, with some MF and +life mixed in. Nothing too noteworthy except a perfect 8%@res large charm.
Kasim the Blessed Aim Guard
* 4-Topaz Gothic Plate(96%MF)
* Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest (10%LL, 15@res)
* 'Insight' Bec-de-Corbin (253%ED, +2 Critical Strike)
Calabi instantly felt much more durable, and she can even tank semi-reliably now. She still stays away from the scary monsters, but it's nice to be able to run in with her axe if she needs to and not feel super fragile. Resists on axe switch are 51/55/52/45. Now that Kasim has some leech (and 58%@res) he is WAY more durable, which means basically no more babysitting, and a much healthier bank account. On Kasim's kills she is still sporting a very healthy 355% MF.
As we travel through Hell and the monsters get tougher, we will continue to swap out MF gear as needed for some added durability mostly in the form of +life/vitality (I'm looking at you, Peasant Crown!).We also decided to bite the bullet and spend our 13 saved up skill points to max the valk. What a difference! This gal just does not die, and she kills things too! Notable to mention that with Kasim's aura and maxed Penetrate, she rarely, if ever, misses. She has really provided alot of stability to our group. The *only* downside is that Kasim doesn't get all the kills for his extra MF, but that's a small price to pay for the added durability to the whole party.
After the gear upgrades, there really isn't much more to mention about the journey. Progress is now much smoother and safer, and we were able to clear up to and including the Stony Field. Next time Calabi will see if she can free the old bird from his cage one last time.
Notable finds:
- 'Hexfire' Shamshir (Okay seriously, this game wanted me to play an echantress really badly)
- Eth 'Steeldriver' Great Maul
- We have only seen only one Elite sword so far. It was a socketed Champion Sword (Calabi's dream type), but unfortunately only had one hole in it.
- Only elite polearm so far was a low-quality Ogre Axe. We will hang onto it just in case an Um drops.
- We have hung onto a couple elite axes that dropped as a last resort for 'Passion'. I know Calabi's been using an axe this whole time, but she's a sword gal at heart, and wants her end-game weapon to be one. (Besides, I think axes are slower for zons than swords? I'm not really sure how it all works tbh.
)- We finally found our first Gem Shrine in the Cold Plains. Yes, our first. That took a while.
Conqueror Calabi the Axe-wielding Amazon, with Kasim the Blessed Aim Guard - lvl 77, Hell Stony Field
- Mar 19, 2020
- 3,349
- 1,404
- 113
Passive Aggressive Tournament - Feb 19, 2015
Calabi saved Cain and dispatched Griswold for the last time. Griswold wasn't hanging out in his shop this time, instead he was hiding in the old house where Farnham used to hang out. We cleared the whole of tristram before finding him again, so he was no problem. We also snagged Wirt's leg while we were here so that Calabi officially never has to come back to Tristram again.
Dark wood and the Black marsh were cleared out without any real problems. Once we have an initial area cleared, any above ground area tends to be very safe, as we can backtrack and seperate packs with ease. We did, however, meet these guys in The Hole. Notice the Carver with fanaticism, his boss pack was just a little further down. I did NOT want to take on the Brutes with fanaticism, as they already hit decently hard. Luckily, we ran into these guys only once everything else was cleared, so we were able to seperate the brutes out and bottleneck them in a narrow passageway. The fight wasn't over though, as Calabi hasn't really figured out a solution for PI's yet. We tried lots of valk recasts to try and get one with ctc Amp, no luck. Eventually we shopped a War Scythe with some big fire damage, cast a valk that had some elemental damage on her spear, and settled in for a while. He took probably around 10-15 minutes to wittle down, which is definitely not ideal.
Calabi decided that she needed a true solution for PI's sooner rather than later, especially since PI Ghosts can (and probably will) spawn in the Countess' Tower. Luckily, she has just the thing sitting in her stash. So first things first, she had to get to the Outer Cloister WP for a muling break.
She cleared the Tamoe Highlands and Pit first, hoping for more elite swords (4-socketed, please) to drop along the way. Only a plain Highland Blade dropped, which is not the best option. Pit level 2 had these nice chaps. The boss pack right behind him is Cursed, Spectral Hit. Where you see them in the screenie was the only place we could contain them decently. Kasim eventually died, and we didn't want to give up position, so the valk took on the duties of killing the pack, which she managed quite well.
Hm, that is interesting indeed. This prompted me to actually look up and use a weapon speed calculator for the first time in my D2 career.
If I'm doing this right, it seems that a Feral Axe (which I have), and a Champion Sword (what I was looking for) take 25 and 35 additional IAS to reach 11 fpa with 'Passion', respectively. They also have basically the same average damage (74 and 77).
So after a quick visit to Larzuk:
Seems like she was always meant to be an axe gal in the end. The %ED roll was only 2% higher than the absolute worst (160-210%), so that's a shame. Doesn't matter though, we'll take it. We planned on paying the Countess a visit, but the rest of our session was spent pouring over our stash and trying out combinations to try and keep Calabi as safe as possible while maintaining MF. We ended up settling on 3-piece Sigon's (boots, belt, gloves), and some ring/charm swapping. This left us with:
* 11fpa for normal attack/berserk; 7/8/8/8/13 for Zeal (though I'm not sure I will use it)
* a big boost to AR (Berserk jumps up to ~3800 with Kasim's aura)
* 10% life leech
* resists are slightly better than before the switch
* 280% MF on Kasim's Kills
* Calabi can now kill faster than Kasim for the first time ever!
Here are her LCS shots on shield switch:
Axe switch:
I'm happy with those for now. Note the axe switch could get an easy +15@res with the addition of Tal's Helm. Probably not necessary, as we only bust out the axe once position is established anyways. I would rather keep the additional MF for now, as we still need a suitable armour for Kasim's end-game. I'm excited to test out her new toy against PI's, so I'm hoping some ghosts spawn in the Countess' tower next session.
I'm a little dissapointed with my heavy DEX investment since I was planning to use swords, but oh well. Hindsight is always 20/20, and at least it helps out with my chance to hit and block (it's around 40% iirc).
Finds/Notes:
- Lum rune (come on Fal for a Lionheart for Kasim!)
- Steelrend Ogre Gauntlets (these are interesting, I might keep them on hand for boss fights)
- plain Colossus Voulge
Conqueror Calabi the Axe-wielding Amazon, with Kasim the Blessed Aim Guard - lvl 79, Hell Inner Cloister (quick detour to the Countess first)
Calabi saved Cain and dispatched Griswold for the last time. Griswold wasn't hanging out in his shop this time, instead he was hiding in the old house where Farnham used to hang out. We cleared the whole of tristram before finding him again, so he was no problem. We also snagged Wirt's leg while we were here so that Calabi officially never has to come back to Tristram again.
Dark wood and the Black marsh were cleared out without any real problems. Once we have an initial area cleared, any above ground area tends to be very safe, as we can backtrack and seperate packs with ease. We did, however, meet these guys in The Hole. Notice the Carver with fanaticism, his boss pack was just a little further down. I did NOT want to take on the Brutes with fanaticism, as they already hit decently hard. Luckily, we ran into these guys only once everything else was cleared, so we were able to seperate the brutes out and bottleneck them in a narrow passageway. The fight wasn't over though, as Calabi hasn't really figured out a solution for PI's yet. We tried lots of valk recasts to try and get one with ctc Amp, no luck. Eventually we shopped a War Scythe with some big fire damage, cast a valk that had some elemental damage on her spear, and settled in for a while. He took probably around 10-15 minutes to wittle down, which is definitely not ideal.
Calabi decided that she needed a true solution for PI's sooner rather than later, especially since PI Ghosts can (and probably will) spawn in the Countess' Tower. Luckily, she has just the thing sitting in her stash. So first things first, she had to get to the Outer Cloister WP for a muling break.
She cleared the Tamoe Highlands and Pit first, hoping for more elite swords (4-socketed, please) to drop along the way. Only a plain Highland Blade dropped, which is not the best option. Pit level 2 had these nice chaps. The boss pack right behind him is Cursed, Spectral Hit. Where you see them in the screenie was the only place we could contain them decently. Kasim eventually died, and we didn't want to give up position, so the valk took on the duties of killing the pack, which she managed quite well.
Hm, that is interesting indeed. This prompted me to actually look up and use a weapon speed calculator for the first time in my D2 career.
If I'm doing this right, it seems that a Feral Axe (which I have), and a Champion Sword (what I was looking for) take 25 and 35 additional IAS to reach 11 fpa with 'Passion', respectively. They also have basically the same average damage (74 and 77).
So after a quick visit to Larzuk:
Seems like she was always meant to be an axe gal in the end.
The %ED roll was only 2% higher than the absolute worst (160-210%), so that's a shame. Doesn't matter though, we'll take it. We planned on paying the Countess a visit, but the rest of our session was spent pouring over our stash and trying out combinations to try and keep Calabi as safe as possible while maintaining MF. We ended up settling on 3-piece Sigon's (boots, belt, gloves), and some ring/charm swapping. This left us with:* 11fpa for normal attack/berserk; 7/8/8/8/13 for Zeal (though I'm not sure I will use it)
* a big boost to AR (Berserk jumps up to ~3800 with Kasim's aura)
* 10% life leech
* resists are slightly better than before the switch
* 280% MF on Kasim's Kills
* Calabi can now kill faster than Kasim for the first time ever!
Here are her LCS shots on shield switch:
Axe switch:
I'm happy with those for now.
Note the axe switch could get an easy +15@res with the addition of Tal's Helm. Probably not necessary, as we only bust out the axe once position is established anyways. I would rather keep the additional MF for now, as we still need a suitable armour for Kasim's end-game. I'm excited to test out her new toy against PI's, so I'm hoping some ghosts spawn in the Countess' tower next session.I'm a little dissapointed with my heavy DEX investment since I was planning to use swords, but oh well. Hindsight is always 20/20, and at least it helps out with my chance to hit and block (it's around 40% iirc).
Finds/Notes:
- Lum rune (come on Fal for a Lionheart for Kasim!)
- Steelrend Ogre Gauntlets (these are interesting, I might keep them on hand for boss fights)
- plain Colossus Voulge
Conqueror Calabi the Axe-wielding Amazon, with Kasim the Blessed Aim Guard - lvl 79, Hell Inner Cloister (quick detour to the Countess first)
- Mar 19, 2020
- 3,349
- 1,404
- 113
Passive Aggressive Tournament - Feb 23, 2015
As expected, the Countess' tower provided us with a whole pile of PI Ghosts, so Calabi got to test out her now toy. I am extremely impressed by it, Berserk just melts the PI's so far, even on /p5. The only thing I'm not crazy about is the ctc flee, but that is a small hinderance on such a nice weapon. Having a reliable PI solution meant the Countess' tower was no problem at all. We dropped it down to /p1 for the Countess herself to increase the rune odds. Well, it's a rune I suppose. Oh well, onwards! The Smith was Extra Strong, Extra Fast and Cursed, which gave us some difficulty. I don't know what I would have done without the valk, as Kasim was less than helpful. To give you an idea of his role, here is an "action shot" of his favourite move for this fight.
The Jail tried it's best to Kill Calabi and her gang, as we had these two skelly archer boss packs (#1, #2) jammed in this small room. Yikes, those are some scary mods! Mass amounts of decoy spamming (she fizzled in about 2 seconds) and a lucky break with them concentrating on the valk meant that Kasim could pick them off from the edges and Calabi could stay the heck out of the way. After a few resurrections and some purples for Kasim, we finished them off only to meet up with these guys in the next room. This group was actually much tougher than the other two, as they had alot of room to move around, and it was tough to establish position. You can see in the screenie that the decoy was vaporized in the time it took to take the shot (ie. VERY quickly). We slowly managed to lure minions out, and then could take on the boss. Phew!
The rest of Act 1 was a breeze compare to that, and as usual, Andariel's drop was utterly useless, despite being done with over 400% MF:
Forget it, let's just get on that caravan and get to the desert.
The Stony tomb provided us with a lovely gift for Kasim. This will be kept on hand for Act bosses, or tough boss packs. The CB and DS will be very useful indeed. He will still wear his Tal's Crest for questing, as the LL is too useful to pass up. The maggot lair drew Locusts on all 3 levels, which is a shame for the drops. The lair is pretty much perfect for our group, as the narrow passageway let Calabi hack over Kasim's shoulder without being in any danger.
We met our first PI/MI Plague Bearer Boss in the Lost City. We tried our Lower Resist wand with no luck. The Level 2 LR was not enough to break the immunity. Hm, okay let's look at our options. We could shop a weapon with ctc Amp to try and break the PI, but with their innate 50% physical resistance on top of the Stone Skin, I'm not sure that would be a very efficient option. So we shopped an Arcing Broad sword with our LR wand on switch and tried it out.
Success! We just needed to keep the zombie busy with the Decoy (his Spectral Hit really did a number on Kasim) and we could whittle him down. We needed to employ the same strategy again a little further along on the map as we found our 2nd PI/MI. I think we'll keep this sword on hand from now on, just in case.
Full clear status is still on.
After that we just finished clearing out the Lost City and nabbed the WP, the ancient tunnels will have to wait. *makes mental note: mule in Teleport staff (yes staff, we haven't seen an ammy with it yet) before hitting the CVT this time!*
Finds/Notes:
- 2 more plain Colossus Voulge's. I have only seen these and Ogre Axes so far for elite polearms.
- The Guillaume's Face mentioned above
- Ruby (36% FR) Greaves of Luck (35%), stashed for potential gear swapping later.
Conqueror Calabi the Axe-wielding Amazon, with Kasim the Blessed Aim Guard - lvl 82, Lost City
As expected, the Countess' tower provided us with a whole pile of PI Ghosts, so Calabi got to test out her now toy. I am extremely impressed by it, Berserk just melts the PI's so far, even on /p5. The only thing I'm not crazy about is the ctc flee, but that is a small hinderance on such a nice weapon. Having a reliable PI solution meant the Countess' tower was no problem at all. We dropped it down to /p1 for the Countess herself to increase the rune odds. Well, it's a rune I suppose. Oh well, onwards! The Smith was Extra Strong, Extra Fast and Cursed, which gave us some difficulty. I don't know what I would have done without the valk, as Kasim was less than helpful. To give you an idea of his role, here is an "action shot" of his favourite move for this fight.
The Jail tried it's best to Kill Calabi and her gang, as we had these two skelly archer boss packs (#1, #2) jammed in this small room. Yikes, those are some scary mods! Mass amounts of decoy spamming (she fizzled in about 2 seconds) and a lucky break with them concentrating on the valk meant that Kasim could pick them off from the edges and Calabi could stay the heck out of the way. After a few resurrections and some purples for Kasim, we finished them off only to meet up with these guys in the next room.
This group was actually much tougher than the other two, as they had alot of room to move around, and it was tough to establish position. You can see in the screenie that the decoy was vaporized in the time it took to take the shot (ie. VERY quickly). We slowly managed to lure minions out, and then could take on the boss. Phew!The rest of Act 1 was a breeze compare to that, and as usual, Andariel's drop was utterly useless, despite being done with over 400% MF:
Forget it, let's just get on that caravan and get to the desert.
The Stony tomb provided us with a lovely gift for Kasim. This will be kept on hand for Act bosses, or tough boss packs. The CB and DS will be very useful indeed. He will still wear his Tal's Crest for questing, as the LL is too useful to pass up. The maggot lair drew Locusts on all 3 levels, which is a shame for the drops. The lair is pretty much perfect for our group, as the narrow passageway let Calabi hack over Kasim's shoulder without being in any danger.
We met our first PI/MI Plague Bearer Boss in the Lost City. We tried our Lower Resist wand with no luck. The Level 2 LR was not enough to break the immunity. Hm, okay let's look at our options. We could shop a weapon with ctc Amp to try and break the PI, but with their innate 50% physical resistance on top of the Stone Skin, I'm not sure that would be a very efficient option. So we shopped an Arcing Broad sword with our LR wand on switch and tried it out.
Success! We just needed to keep the zombie busy with the Decoy (his Spectral Hit really did a number on Kasim) and we could whittle him down. We needed to employ the same strategy again a little further along on the map as we found our 2nd PI/MI. I think we'll keep this sword on hand from now on, just in case.
Full clear status is still on.
After that we just finished clearing out the Lost City and nabbed the WP, the ancient tunnels will have to wait. *makes mental note: mule in Teleport staff (yes staff, we haven't seen an ammy with it yet) before hitting the CVT this time!*
Finds/Notes:
- 2 more plain Colossus Voulge's. I have only seen these and Ogre Axes so far for elite polearms.
- The Guillaume's Face mentioned above
- Ruby (36% FR) Greaves of Luck (35%), stashed for potential gear swapping later.
Conqueror Calabi the Axe-wielding Amazon, with Kasim the Blessed Aim Guard - lvl 82, Lost City
- Mar 19, 2020
- 3,349
- 1,404
- 113
Passive Aggressive Tournament - Feb 25, 2015
Just a smaller (in terms of progress) update from Calabi today. I probably won't be having as much playing time for a while, so progress might wane a little bit. I will do my best to keep you all updated on the rest of Calabi's journey regardless.
She and Kasim picked up at the Lost City WP and cleared out the Ancient Tunnels, hoping the high alvl would net us some elite polearms worth using, or some more goodies. We got neither. Calabi is much more involved in the fighting now, and partakes in pretty much every fight. We still have to be careful with the really hard hitters, but she's much happier now that she can at least get her hands dirty a little bit!
The CVT started off with one of my least favourite formations (The one with the cul-de-sac that has the door to the chars right upon entering, see screenie). So we went straight ahead and were met in the next room by a boss pack of extra fast snakes, and a champ pack of Guardians along with their skeleton cohort. Not good. Thus began a hectic fight of trying desperately not to lose position to the knockback-ing snakes, while simultaneously not getting surrounded by skellies. We got pushed all the way back to the entrance, where we luckily did not wake up any other monsters. We managed to use some urns to funnel the snakes, and then they and the skellies went down without issue. Once that was over, we could deal with the Guardians in peace. Calabi used Zeal (as they are MI) against them, and was pleasantly surprised. She has no +skills, so it's only 2 hits. Truth be told though, I think I prefer that with her, as I wouldn't want to have to wait for the end of a 5-hit cycle to be able to move away from danger. After that less than ideal start, the rest of the level was done with no problems.
Time to pay a visit to our old friend Fangskin. We stepped down the stairs and moved forward down the hallway slowly. From the top of the screen came skellies and a snake or two. We killed the snakes, but the Guardians kept ressurecting the skellies, so we weren't making any progress. Some more snakes started coming from the bottom of the room. A quick check showed they weren't minions, so that was good. They started knocking the decoy around and between them and the skellies, we were getting pushed towards the entrance. We did NOT want to get stuck there, so we switched to our teleport staff in an attempt to establish position.
Not bad, but not great. The valk was strong enough to take Fangskin on her own, and Kasim stood excatly where you see him, getting pummeled by the unholy bolts of the Guardians. We used the decoy to distract snakes into the lower corner (you can see her on the map of the screenie), so that the valk didn't get overwhelmed until she managed to take out Fangskin all on her own. We couldn't hold this position forever though, as Kasim was just getting slammed, and the knockback from the snakes threatened to push the valk up the stairs, which could get very messy. We tele'd back out to the eastern corner of the main room, and from there we managed to work our way around the room clockwise until it was all cleared. Phew! That wasn't as bad as it could have been, but we definitely caught a couple lucky breaks. We also forgot to mule on the Nadir helm AGAIN, which could have saved some aggaravation from those Guardians.
The Palace was cleared easily, with the only problem being this gentleman:
Horror archers have 75% Magic Resistance, which meant that Berserk did basically nothing. Luckily, we had cast a valk with a ctc Amp, so once again she was the hero of the day:
It only took three or four cycles of Amp-ing to take him down, between the three of us. We managed to clear one section of the Arcane Sanctuary before quitting for the night, with no snags.
Other finds/notes;
- Burning GC of Greed (Big surprise, more Enchantress fodder)
- Haemosu's Adament
- Trang-Oul's Scales
- Another plain Ogre Axe. Still no magical/rare elite polearms/spears yet.
- Fal rune from a chest in Arcane. Now we can either make a Lionheart for Kasim's end-game armour, or hold out and hope for a Ko to make Obedience. I might try some cubing/crafting etc in the meantime, and if that provides us with a juicy weapon, then the choice is made for us.
Conqueror Calabi the Axe-wielding Amazon, with Kasim the Blessed Aim Guard - lvl 83, Arcane Sanctuary
Just a smaller (in terms of progress) update from Calabi today. I probably won't be having as much playing time for a while, so progress might wane a little bit. I will do my best to keep you all updated on the rest of Calabi's journey regardless.
She and Kasim picked up at the Lost City WP and cleared out the Ancient Tunnels, hoping the high alvl would net us some elite polearms worth using, or some more goodies. We got neither. Calabi is much more involved in the fighting now, and partakes in pretty much every fight. We still have to be careful with the really hard hitters, but she's much happier now that she can at least get her hands dirty a little bit!
The CVT started off with one of my least favourite formations (The one with the cul-de-sac that has the door to the chars right upon entering, see screenie). So we went straight ahead and were met in the next room by a boss pack of extra fast snakes, and a champ pack of Guardians along with their skeleton cohort. Not good. Thus began a hectic fight of trying desperately not to lose position to the knockback-ing snakes, while simultaneously not getting surrounded by skellies. We got pushed all the way back to the entrance, where we luckily did not wake up any other monsters. We managed to use some urns to funnel the snakes, and then they and the skellies went down without issue. Once that was over, we could deal with the Guardians in peace. Calabi used Zeal (as they are MI) against them, and was pleasantly surprised. She has no +skills, so it's only 2 hits. Truth be told though, I think I prefer that with her, as I wouldn't want to have to wait for the end of a 5-hit cycle to be able to move away from danger. After that less than ideal start, the rest of the level was done with no problems.
Time to pay a visit to our old friend Fangskin. We stepped down the stairs and moved forward down the hallway slowly. From the top of the screen came skellies and a snake or two. We killed the snakes, but the Guardians kept ressurecting the skellies, so we weren't making any progress. Some more snakes started coming from the bottom of the room. A quick check showed they weren't minions, so that was good. They started knocking the decoy around and between them and the skellies, we were getting pushed towards the entrance. We did NOT want to get stuck there, so we switched to our teleport staff in an attempt to establish position.
Not bad, but not great. The valk was strong enough to take Fangskin on her own, and Kasim stood excatly where you see him, getting pummeled by the unholy bolts of the Guardians. We used the decoy to distract snakes into the lower corner (you can see her on the map of the screenie), so that the valk didn't get overwhelmed until she managed to take out Fangskin all on her own. We couldn't hold this position forever though, as Kasim was just getting slammed, and the knockback from the snakes threatened to push the valk up the stairs, which could get very messy. We tele'd back out to the eastern corner of the main room, and from there we managed to work our way around the room clockwise until it was all cleared. Phew! That wasn't as bad as it could have been, but we definitely caught a couple lucky breaks. We also forgot to mule on the Nadir helm AGAIN, which could have saved some aggaravation from those Guardians.
The Palace was cleared easily, with the only problem being this gentleman:
Horror archers have 75% Magic Resistance, which meant that Berserk did basically nothing. Luckily, we had cast a valk with a ctc Amp, so once again she was the hero of the day:
It only took three or four cycles of Amp-ing to take him down, between the three of us. We managed to clear one section of the Arcane Sanctuary before quitting for the night, with no snags.
Other finds/notes;
- Burning GC of Greed (Big surprise, more Enchantress fodder
)- Haemosu's Adament
- Trang-Oul's Scales
- Another plain Ogre Axe. Still no magical/rare elite polearms/spears yet.
- Fal rune from a chest in Arcane. Now we can either make a Lionheart for Kasim's end-game armour, or hold out and hope for a Ko to make Obedience. I might try some cubing/crafting etc in the meantime, and if that provides us with a juicy weapon, then the choice is made for us.
Conqueror Calabi the Axe-wielding Amazon, with Kasim the Blessed Aim Guard - lvl 83, Arcane Sanctuary
- Mar 19, 2020
- 3,349
- 1,404
- 113
Passive Aggressive Tournament - Feb 27, 2015
I was going to wait to update once she had made more progress, but I want to get a new table with all the new entries, so I figured may as well let everyone know where she is. Also, I thought it might be interesting for the other competitors to see how my imbuing etc went. Here goes!
The rest of Arcane was done with no big problems. It sure was slow though, as there were a ton of PI ghosts. It wasn't necessarily the fact that they were PI that was an issue (although it didn't help), but the fact that the flee on Calabi's axe meant that they would fly off into space after a few hits. Basically we let Kasim and the valk take a group on and let them slowly take them out with the ctc Amp on the valk's spear. While they did this Calabi would seperate 1 (or 2, ideally) and Berserk it until it flew off, then wait for it to come back to her and repeat the process. Let's just say I'm glad it's over.
We finally got a magic elite spear to drop (Stygian Pike), so we decided the break after Arcane was a good time to try for a weapon upgrade for Kasim.
First step was to test out our 3 imbues on some of the Ogre Axes we had found. Here are the results:
#1
#2
#3
That went about as well as expected. We then used up all of our saved chipped gems re-rolling the magical stygian pike we had found, with even poorer results. The best we could manage was Merciless (96% ED) with one socket. Yuck. We were sufficiently discouraged to stop trying there, and instead decided to socket the other white elite polearms we had found and see if anything came out with 4 sockets. We had one Great Poleaxe and 4 Colossus Voulges to try. The GPA came out with 3, so that will be kept in case we find an UM rune for Crescent Moon, and on our last CV we managed 4 sockets.
So we bit the bullet and upgraded Kasim's cheese stick (it came out with 230%ED and +3 to critical strike). Since the STR requirement is so high on CV's, we made him a Lionheart in a Gothic Plate to match Calabi's. Here is what his stats look like:
That'll do for now, his killing speed and survivability rose significantly but we had to sacrifice a pile of MF. We are still at ~175% on Calabi's Rhyme switch, so I'm quite happy with that, although I think soon we will make the switch to full killing/survival gear for Calabi (I'm starting to get a little wary of her life total). We will take some time later on to roll our Flawless/Perfect gems and do a bit of crafting to see if we can score a better/more interesting weapon for Kasim.
So with that our little group cleared out the Canyon, as well as the first false tomb. A boss unraveller pack (Extra Fast/Cursed/Fanaticism) gave us a scare in the room with the gold chest when the boss all of a sudden sprinted at Calabi and melee'd her while she was fighting another Unraveller (he took off over half her health). Other than that, nothing too exciting, and no good finds.
Conqueror Calabi the Axe-wielding Amazon, with Kasim the Blessed Aim Guard - lvl 84, False tombs (1 complete)
I was going to wait to update once she had made more progress, but I want to get a new table with all the new entries, so I figured may as well let everyone know where she is. Also, I thought it might be interesting for the other competitors to see how my imbuing etc went. Here goes!
The rest of Arcane was done with no big problems. It sure was slow though, as there were a ton of PI ghosts. It wasn't necessarily the fact that they were PI that was an issue (although it didn't help), but the fact that the flee on Calabi's axe meant that they would fly off into space after a few hits. Basically we let Kasim and the valk take a group on and let them slowly take them out with the ctc Amp on the valk's spear. While they did this Calabi would seperate 1 (or 2, ideally) and Berserk it until it flew off, then wait for it to come back to her and repeat the process. Let's just say I'm glad it's over.
We finally got a magic elite spear to drop (Stygian Pike), so we decided the break after Arcane was a good time to try for a weapon upgrade for Kasim.
First step was to test out our 3 imbues on some of the Ogre Axes we had found. Here are the results:
#1
#2
#3
That went about as well as expected. We then used up all of our saved chipped gems re-rolling the magical stygian pike we had found, with even poorer results. The best we could manage was Merciless (96% ED) with one socket. Yuck. We were sufficiently discouraged to stop trying there, and instead decided to socket the other white elite polearms we had found and see if anything came out with 4 sockets. We had one Great Poleaxe and 4 Colossus Voulges to try. The GPA came out with 3, so that will be kept in case we find an UM rune for Crescent Moon, and on our last CV we managed 4 sockets.
So we bit the bullet and upgraded Kasim's cheese stick (it came out with 230%ED and +3 to critical strike). Since the STR requirement is so high on CV's, we made him a Lionheart in a Gothic Plate to match Calabi's. Here is what his stats look like:
That'll do for now, his killing speed and survivability rose significantly but we had to sacrifice a pile of MF. We are still at ~175% on Calabi's Rhyme switch, so I'm quite happy with that, although I think soon we will make the switch to full killing/survival gear for Calabi (I'm starting to get a little wary of her life total). We will take some time later on to roll our Flawless/Perfect gems and do a bit of crafting to see if we can score a better/more interesting weapon for Kasim.
So with that our little group cleared out the Canyon, as well as the first false tomb. A boss unraveller pack (Extra Fast/Cursed/Fanaticism) gave us a scare in the room with the gold chest when the boss all of a sudden sprinted at Calabi and melee'd her while she was fighting another Unraveller (he took off over half her health). Other than that, nothing too exciting, and no good finds.
Conqueror Calabi the Axe-wielding Amazon, with Kasim the Blessed Aim Guard - lvl 84, False tombs (1 complete)
- Mar 19, 2020
- 3,349
- 1,404
- 113
Passive Aggressive Tournament - March 1, 2015
This is a strange part of the game for me. Late Act 2 (post-Arcane) is probably my least favourite area in the game, and the early Act 3 jungles are my favourite. It makes for a strange combinaion of not wanting to grind through it, but simultaneously being very excited because of what's to come.
Alas, it was time to bite the bullet and take on the rest of the false tombs. The third tomb had the entrance that is just the one big room. Luckily there was nothing dangerous waiting for us there, as it can be quite tricky to deal with threats here. However, on the other side of one of the doors was a pretty scary boss pack of mummies:
The combination of Might, Spectral Hit and HF is absolutely deadly for Calabi as she needs to be able to retreat quickly if need be. This pack was actually dealt with extremely easily, and I included this SS to show just how much of a beast a fully synergized valk can be. Her health never moved. Kasim and Calabi were able to safely kill the entire pack from outside the door without getting a scratch.
The next two tombs were quite straightforward and Kaa was dispatched with no issue, so feeling good about themselves, the group descended into the 6th false tomb ready to clear it out. We started to clear out the first hallway, and were charged by a group of extra fast, extra strong ghosts. They hit pretty hard, and it's basically up to Calabi to kill them, so they can be quite tough. We got pushed back to the entrance, and were not making much progress killing them. Kasim was dead, the valk was faltering, and then everything went hay-wire. A mis-click opened the door just above the pack, and in poured some skeletons. Oh no, the last thing we need right now is to have to deal with the unravellers. We had two options: either stay here and try to fight the ghosts and skellies, hoping not to wake anything else up, or push forward through the hallway and try to establish position there. We chose the latter. We made it passed everything, but ended up getting cornered in the next room.
This position was actually not nearly as dangerous as it seems. Nothing could hit Calabi, and we had outrun most of the ghosts, so the valk wasn't overwhelmed. Whatever ghosts did come near were driven away with the flee on Passion, which managed to keep the pressure at a manageable level. Before we knew it we had killed this pack, and the ghosts, resurrected Kasim and cleared the room. Phew! The rest of the tomb went well, except for a room that contained a Mummy Sarcophagus and 3 Unravellers with their skeletons. It took probably an hour in this room alone to be able to pull everything away from the Unravellers and stem the tide of ever-flowing mummies.
Fun fact: we drew Unravellers in ALL 6 false tombs, and PI ghosts in 4 of them. Needless to say, it was slow going.
We considered dropping it from /p5 to /p3 for the true tomb, as our patience was beginning to run thin, but eventually we decided that we had come this far, we may as well finish it off. Besides, what are the chances that we would draw Unravellers in all 7 tombs?
...
Good enough to get them again. Oh, and we drew Ghosts too.
The tomb was actually not difficult, just slow. We FINALLY after all those tombs managed to cast a valk with amp, so that definitely helped. Duriel was taken on with the old decoy-valk-merc-sandwich tactic:
Between the valk's amp, and Kasim's CB from Guillaumes Face, the fight was very smooth and relatively quick (it was done on /p3).
Staying in true Duriel fashion, he droped us absolutely nothing of use:
But at least we were done with Act 2! No more false tombs for Calabi, ever!
Other notes/finds:
- Lum rune (our third)
- Que Hegan's Wisdom
- Demon Limb. This proved quite useful, and we will keep it in the stash from now on. The Enchant, although not super powerful, at least gives Kasim and the valk a bit more power in PI-heavy areas.
- Sigon's Armor to complete the set.
- We learned alot about blocking mummy sarcophagi during this trip. Decoys work well, but truthfully, I prefer this method.
Conqueror Calabi the Axe-wielding Amazon, with Kasim the Blessed Aim Guard - lvl 85, Kurast Docks
This is a strange part of the game for me. Late Act 2 (post-Arcane) is probably my least favourite area in the game, and the early Act 3 jungles are my favourite. It makes for a strange combinaion of not wanting to grind through it, but simultaneously being very excited because of what's to come.
Alas, it was time to bite the bullet and take on the rest of the false tombs. The third tomb had the entrance that is just the one big room. Luckily there was nothing dangerous waiting for us there, as it can be quite tricky to deal with threats here. However, on the other side of one of the doors was a pretty scary boss pack of mummies:
The combination of Might, Spectral Hit and HF is absolutely deadly for Calabi as she needs to be able to retreat quickly if need be. This pack was actually dealt with extremely easily, and I included this SS to show just how much of a beast a fully synergized valk can be. Her health never moved. Kasim and Calabi were able to safely kill the entire pack from outside the door without getting a scratch.
The next two tombs were quite straightforward and Kaa was dispatched with no issue, so feeling good about themselves, the group descended into the 6th false tomb ready to clear it out. We started to clear out the first hallway, and were charged by a group of extra fast, extra strong ghosts. They hit pretty hard, and it's basically up to Calabi to kill them, so they can be quite tough. We got pushed back to the entrance, and were not making much progress killing them. Kasim was dead, the valk was faltering, and then everything went hay-wire. A mis-click opened the door just above the pack, and in poured some skeletons. Oh no, the last thing we need right now is to have to deal with the unravellers. We had two options: either stay here and try to fight the ghosts and skellies, hoping not to wake anything else up, or push forward through the hallway and try to establish position there. We chose the latter. We made it passed everything, but ended up getting cornered in the next room.
This position was actually not nearly as dangerous as it seems. Nothing could hit Calabi, and we had outrun most of the ghosts, so the valk wasn't overwhelmed. Whatever ghosts did come near were driven away with the flee on Passion, which managed to keep the pressure at a manageable level. Before we knew it we had killed this pack, and the ghosts, resurrected Kasim and cleared the room. Phew! The rest of the tomb went well, except for a room that contained a Mummy Sarcophagus and 3 Unravellers with their skeletons. It took probably an hour in this room alone to be able to pull everything away from the Unravellers and stem the tide of ever-flowing mummies.
Fun fact: we drew Unravellers in ALL 6 false tombs, and PI ghosts in 4 of them. Needless to say, it was slow going.
We considered dropping it from /p5 to /p3 for the true tomb, as our patience was beginning to run thin, but eventually we decided that we had come this far, we may as well finish it off. Besides, what are the chances that we would draw Unravellers in all 7 tombs?
...
Good enough to get them again. Oh, and we drew Ghosts too
.The tomb was actually not difficult, just slow. We FINALLY after all those tombs managed to cast a valk with amp, so that definitely helped. Duriel was taken on with the old decoy-valk-merc-sandwich tactic:
Between the valk's amp, and Kasim's CB from Guillaumes Face, the fight was very smooth and relatively quick (it was done on /p3).
Staying in true Duriel fashion, he droped us absolutely nothing of use:
But at least we were done with Act 2! No more false tombs for Calabi, ever!
Other notes/finds:
- Lum rune (our third)
- Que Hegan's Wisdom
- Demon Limb. This proved quite useful, and we will keep it in the stash from now on. The Enchant, although not super powerful, at least gives Kasim and the valk a bit more power in PI-heavy areas.
- Sigon's Armor to complete the set.
- We learned alot about blocking mummy sarcophagi during this trip. Decoys work well, but truthfully, I prefer this method.
Conqueror Calabi the Axe-wielding Amazon, with Kasim the Blessed Aim Guard - lvl 85, Kurast Docks
- Mar 19, 2020
- 3,349
- 1,404
- 113
Passive Aggressive Tournament - March 2, 2015
Calabi left the docks and strolled through the jungles without many issues. These guys were waiting right by the entrance of the Arachnid Lair, and gave us a fair bit of trouble. We couldn't hold our position here as Kasim got killed very quickly, so we had to bounce back and forth from TP's to the WP (right outside the entrance) to try and contain them. Once the boss was killed, the minions were no problem, as was the rest of the lair. The above ground areas were going so smoothly that even the game didn't want us to go back to town. That's the first time I've seen a failed portal shrine, does this happen to anyone else?
Sszark was initially quite scary, but he actually did us a huge favor tele'd himself away. This allowed us the clear his minions easily after healing the curse. He was then no problem as we found him cowering in a corner.
We didn't draw gloams in the Great Marsh, so it was a cakewalk. The Swampy Pit, however, was not as nice. These two bat boss packs made our lives difficult on the first floor, as their erratic flying made it hard to keep position, and we had to stay very aware that Calabi didn't get overwhelmed. Level 2 provided us with this room:
Aside from that doll pack, there is a second doll boss pack in there (Cursed, Extra Fast), and an accompanying champ pack of gloams. This took alot of care, alot of merc deaths, and alot of Slow Missiles to keep the gloams under control. Calabi had a scary moment there where we had been pushed back into the hallway, and a doll ran around Kasim just as he killed it, exploding it right in Calabi's face. It took off a decent bit of damage (though not really a NDE), and luckily we weren't cursed at the time, but it was still scary.
Stormtree was harmless, as he had a major preoccupation with the Decoy. We then ran into LK and grabbed the WP so we could quit and do some muling. We figured this was a good time to switch over officially from MF gear to full survival/killing mode as we wanted to use some of the goodies that we had found. Basically what happened so far was we added Tal's helm, and these Gore Rider's that we found, and did some charm/ring swapping. I'm still adjusting the gear, as I want her life to be a bit higher.
Here is a quick look at her stats/skills right now on her Axe switch. Resistances go up to max on her shield switch.
I might post a full gear/stats update once I have her gear all sorted out (probably after the next or the end of Act 3 if I get there) if anyone is interested, or I might just hang on until she's finished her journey.
So after we the gear swapping, we continued on and cleared out the 3 kurasts above ground, as well as the sewers. No issues at all, even the Horadrim Agents we drew in the Sewers weren't very annoying. I guess they heard how much we hated their brothers in Act 2 and took it easy on us. That is where the group stopped for now, temples are up next!
Other finds:
- another Lum rune (that makes 4)
- Gore Riders mentioned above
- Ruby (38%ED) Jewel of Ire (+4 max damage)
Conqueror Calabi the Axe-wielding Amazon, with Kasim the Blessed Aim Guard - lvl 86, Hell Kurast Temples next
Calabi left the docks and strolled through the jungles without many issues. These guys were waiting right by the entrance of the Arachnid Lair, and gave us a fair bit of trouble. We couldn't hold our position here as Kasim got killed very quickly, so we had to bounce back and forth from TP's to the WP (right outside the entrance) to try and contain them. Once the boss was killed, the minions were no problem, as was the rest of the lair. The above ground areas were going so smoothly that even the game didn't want us to go back to town. That's the first time I've seen a failed portal shrine, does this happen to anyone else?
Sszark was initially quite scary, but he actually did us a huge favor tele'd himself away. This allowed us the clear his minions easily after healing the curse. He was then no problem as we found him cowering in a corner.
We didn't draw gloams in the Great Marsh, so it was a cakewalk. The Swampy Pit, however, was not as nice. These two bat boss packs made our lives difficult on the first floor, as their erratic flying made it hard to keep position, and we had to stay very aware that Calabi didn't get overwhelmed. Level 2 provided us with this room:
Aside from that doll pack, there is a second doll boss pack in there (Cursed, Extra Fast), and an accompanying champ pack of gloams. This took alot of care, alot of merc deaths, and alot of Slow Missiles to keep the gloams under control. Calabi had a scary moment there where we had been pushed back into the hallway, and a doll ran around Kasim just as he killed it, exploding it right in Calabi's face. It took off a decent bit of damage (though not really a NDE), and luckily we weren't cursed at the time, but it was still scary.
Stormtree was harmless, as he had a major preoccupation with the Decoy. We then ran into LK and grabbed the WP so we could quit and do some muling. We figured this was a good time to switch over officially from MF gear to full survival/killing mode as we wanted to use some of the goodies that we had found. Basically what happened so far was we added Tal's helm, and these Gore Rider's that we found, and did some charm/ring swapping. I'm still adjusting the gear, as I want her life to be a bit higher.
Here is a quick look at her stats/skills right now on her Axe switch. Resistances go up to max on her shield switch.
I might post a full gear/stats update once I have her gear all sorted out (probably after the next or the end of Act 3 if I get there) if anyone is interested, or I might just hang on until she's finished her journey.
So after we the gear swapping, we continued on and cleared out the 3 kurasts above ground, as well as the sewers. No issues at all, even the Horadrim Agents we drew in the Sewers weren't very annoying. I guess they heard how much we hated their brothers in Act 2 and took it easy on us. That is where the group stopped for now, temples are up next!
Other finds:
- another Lum rune (that makes 4)
- Gore Riders mentioned above
- Ruby (38%ED) Jewel of Ire (+4 max damage)
Conqueror Calabi the Axe-wielding Amazon, with Kasim the Blessed Aim Guard - lvl 86, Hell Kurast Temples next
- Mar 19, 2020
- 3,349
- 1,404
- 113
Passive Aggressive Tournament - March 4, 2015
Calabi has been worried about the upcoming task for nearly her whole adventure. It was time to face the Kurast temples. She prepped for the session by swapping out her 100% monster flee knives for a wand with terror charges (for the increased radius), and swapping her 'Passion' Axe for a tele staff. She kept the axe and knives in her inventory so she could switch back to her regular gear once they got established inside the temples. The thing that worried her was that with no FCR, she has a 19-frame casting rate. That makes a panic teleport very tough to pull off, as it would require almost a full second of not getting hit to successfully cast it. Either way, it was better than nothing, so off she went.
We did Sarina's temple first. We went down the stairs and were almost immediately confronted with this might enchanted Flesh Hunter pack:
We had plenty of room to work with there, so it wasn't much of an issue. We also knew because of the temple layout that we were likely in no danger of waking Sarina's pack as she tends to stay put in the bigger room in the south-west. The rest of that temple was a breeze. Good start!
The second temple we went into had a pack of regular flesh hunters waiting by the stairs. We got lucky with our spawn points, and Calabi spawned outside of the pack, with the valk dead centre inside them. This meant they immediately went for the valk, and Kasim and Calabi could take them from the outside. Had Calabi and the valk been reversed, that could have been a very scary entrance! This temple actually had no boss or champ packs in it, just 3 seperate packs of regular Flesh Hunters. The rest of the temples were done with ease as well, and just like in normal difficulty, the Ruined Fane only had 4 regular bats in it. Not 4 packs of bats, just one pack of 4 bats (in normal we had the same thing, but with snakes). What is it with this place? All in all, a very underwhelming temple experience (which is a good thing!), no NDE's, no need for either of my 'safety-precaution' equipment switches, no really scary situations at all.
The council was a joke, and were easily killed by leading them out 1-2 at a time and killing them down by that big platform. The OW and CB from Calabi's new Gore Rider boots has had a noticeable effect on the higher life/physical immune or stone skin bosses.
We got maulers in the durance (level 1 and 2), so that made things fairly difficult at times. Their knockback can render the Decoy pretty much useless, and has the added effect of breaking our formations, which keeps us on the move. I have two main tactics to deal with tough packs of them, and it depends entirely on the situation which one I will use. I either split them up between the valk and merc/decoy, which takes alot of focus from Calabi to keep them contained, or I can use Calabi's preferred valk/decoy+wall sandwich tactic. That is the valk pressed into the corner, and this SS was taken after Kasim had killed a couple of these guys. She easily survived taking a simultaneous beating from 3 Extra fast, Extra Strong maulers, with her health never dropping below half.
A PI/Conviction Bremm gave us a boatload of trouble on Mephy's level. Kasim died pretty much instantly, and Bremm even managed to take out the valk a couple times.
This was the safest way we could fight him, and it was still terrifying, as his aura put Calabi down to -10LR so she had to be very careful of the bolts.
A poison immune valk (note in the screenie she is not green) made Meph a walk in the park as the CB from Kasim and Calabi made a mockery of him on /p3. He must have been embarassed, because with his final breath he made sure to give us nothing even remotely useful. Onwards to Act IV!
We drew spawners and spitters in all 3 outdoor areas, so it took a long time to clear them out. They each have fairly high Physical resistance (66% and 50% respectively), so coupled with Kasim and the valk getting distracted by the babies, it was very slow going at /players 5. This pack probably killed Kasim 7 or 8 times alone, as the CE made it very hard to establish a foothold. Lots of backtracking and portal hopping allowed us to separate them into manageable chunks.
Izual was not even close to a problem, and didn't even take very long, due to Calabi's CB. We cleared the City of the Damned out, and decided to call it quits for the day.
Other finds:
- our fifth (!) Lum Rune. We can now cube a Ko if need be.
- Radament's Sphere Ancient Shield. Interesting, but useless.
Depending on what the Hellforge drops, we will be making our (most likely) final gear-switches at the next WP, so I turn to the lovely folks at the SPF for some advice! I'm most likely going to socket Calabi's Tal Rasha's Helm, I'm just not sure what with. I'm tempted to just go for a PRuby for the life, but I'm wondering if a Sol rune for the PDR would be a good option? She has a bit of PDR/MDR from her rings, but not much (4 PDR, 2 MDR). If I do go the Sol route, I'm thinking I might add in an upped Nightsmoke for more damage reduction/damage to mana. I'm not very well versed in how effective PDR is, but I have a feeling such a small amount won't make a huge difference, and I'm better off maximizing my life total. Thoughts?
Conqueror Calabi the Axe-wielding Amazon, with Kasim the Blessed Aim Guard - lvl 87, Hell River of Flame Next
Calabi has been worried about the upcoming task for nearly her whole adventure. It was time to face the Kurast temples. She prepped for the session by swapping out her 100% monster flee knives for a wand with terror charges (for the increased radius), and swapping her 'Passion' Axe for a tele staff. She kept the axe and knives in her inventory so she could switch back to her regular gear once they got established inside the temples. The thing that worried her was that with no FCR, she has a 19-frame casting rate. That makes a panic teleport very tough to pull off, as it would require almost a full second of not getting hit to successfully cast it. Either way, it was better than nothing, so off she went.
We did Sarina's temple first. We went down the stairs and were almost immediately confronted with this might enchanted Flesh Hunter pack:
We had plenty of room to work with there, so it wasn't much of an issue. We also knew because of the temple layout that we were likely in no danger of waking Sarina's pack as she tends to stay put in the bigger room in the south-west. The rest of that temple was a breeze. Good start!
The second temple we went into had a pack of regular flesh hunters waiting by the stairs. We got lucky with our spawn points, and Calabi spawned outside of the pack, with the valk dead centre inside them. This meant they immediately went for the valk, and Kasim and Calabi could take them from the outside. Had Calabi and the valk been reversed, that could have been a very scary entrance! This temple actually had no boss or champ packs in it, just 3 seperate packs of regular Flesh Hunters. The rest of the temples were done with ease as well, and just like in normal difficulty, the Ruined Fane only had 4 regular bats in it. Not 4 packs of bats, just one pack of 4 bats (in normal we had the same thing, but with snakes). What is it with this place? All in all, a very underwhelming temple experience (which is a good thing!), no NDE's, no need for either of my 'safety-precaution' equipment switches, no really scary situations at all.
The council was a joke, and were easily killed by leading them out 1-2 at a time and killing them down by that big platform. The OW and CB from Calabi's new Gore Rider boots has had a noticeable effect on the higher life/physical immune or stone skin bosses.
We got maulers in the durance (level 1 and 2), so that made things fairly difficult at times. Their knockback can render the Decoy pretty much useless, and has the added effect of breaking our formations, which keeps us on the move. I have two main tactics to deal with tough packs of them, and it depends entirely on the situation which one I will use. I either split them up between the valk and merc/decoy, which takes alot of focus from Calabi to keep them contained, or I can use Calabi's preferred valk/decoy+wall sandwich tactic. That is the valk pressed into the corner, and this SS was taken after Kasim had killed a couple of these guys. She easily survived taking a simultaneous beating from 3 Extra fast, Extra Strong maulers, with her health never dropping below half.
A PI/Conviction Bremm gave us a boatload of trouble on Mephy's level. Kasim died pretty much instantly, and Bremm even managed to take out the valk a couple times.
This was the safest way we could fight him, and it was still terrifying, as his aura put Calabi down to -10LR so she had to be very careful of the bolts.
A poison immune valk (note in the screenie she is not green) made Meph a walk in the park as the CB from Kasim and Calabi made a mockery of him on /p3. He must have been embarassed, because with his final breath he made sure to give us nothing even remotely useful. Onwards to Act IV!
We drew spawners and spitters in all 3 outdoor areas, so it took a long time to clear them out. They each have fairly high Physical resistance (66% and 50% respectively), so coupled with Kasim and the valk getting distracted by the babies, it was very slow going at /players 5. This pack probably killed Kasim 7 or 8 times alone, as the CE made it very hard to establish a foothold. Lots of backtracking and portal hopping allowed us to separate them into manageable chunks.
Izual was not even close to a problem, and didn't even take very long, due to Calabi's CB. We cleared the City of the Damned out, and decided to call it quits for the day.
Other finds:
- our fifth (!) Lum Rune. We can now cube a Ko if need be.
- Radament's Sphere Ancient Shield. Interesting, but useless.
Depending on what the Hellforge drops, we will be making our (most likely) final gear-switches at the next WP, so I turn to the lovely folks at the SPF for some advice! I'm most likely going to socket Calabi's Tal Rasha's Helm, I'm just not sure what with. I'm tempted to just go for a PRuby for the life, but I'm wondering if a Sol rune for the PDR would be a good option? She has a bit of PDR/MDR from her rings, but not much (4 PDR, 2 MDR). If I do go the Sol route, I'm thinking I might add in an upped Nightsmoke for more damage reduction/damage to mana. I'm not very well versed in how effective PDR is, but I have a feeling such a small amount won't make a huge difference, and I'm better off maximizing my life total. Thoughts?
Conqueror Calabi the Axe-wielding Amazon, with Kasim the Blessed Aim Guard - lvl 87, Hell River of Flame Next
- Mar 19, 2020
- 3,349
- 1,404
- 113
Passive Aggressive Tournament - March 5, 2015
Calabi also made progress yesterday, first by doing some muling and switching into what will be her final gear (barring socket quests or big finds). Feeling much better about her life total, she then travelled down into the River of Flame to see what she could find. Almost right away she was presented with this:
Shimmering Grand Charm of Sustenance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 37
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x7ea40900
+29 to Life
All Resistances +14
Not a bad start to the session!
Hephasto was a little kitten. We moved down so we could get a screenie where you could read the mods, but then Calabi got in there and her CB/OW did the trick in no time. Her Gore Riders are quickly becoming a huge part of her success, never underestimate the power of those mods. The Hellforge was not what we had hoped for. We used our remaining Fal for Kasim's end-game armor (Lionheart) back in Act 2, because we didn't want to hold out for Obedience and never see a Ko. Now we have the equivalent of 2, if we cube our Lum runes. Oh well, it was the right decision at the time, and you never know what you're going to find, so I can't regret it too much.
We moved up through the rest of the River with no problems. I guess the monsters had caught wind of us coming because they set up a little roadblock for us on the bridges. They didn't think it through very well though, since Kasim 2-shots them all, even on /p5.
The Chaos Sanctuary was a little tricky, as it was filled with Doom Knights. We had to lure them far away from their mages, as 3-4 of them would easily destroy the Decoy even without curses like Decrep and Amp on us. So we had to lead them away and then seperate them into manageable groups for Calabi and Kasim to take down safely.
Since a big theme for me in this tournament has been being a broken record about how awesome Slow Missiles is, here's another example! This conviction Pit Lord boss pack should have been quite tricky to deal with:
But with SM, their infernos are basically just for show. As long as we could keep Kasim out of the LE spark paths, he had no trouble whatsoever.
The seal bosses were done without issue, we had to portal out of the dead ends at De Seis and the Infector and run back from the WP. But other than that small inconvenience, it was easy to separate the minions and take them in manageable groups.
We lowered the players setting to 3 and hit the last seal, ready to face Diablo. We ran in, set up our decoy at the spawn point, and waited for him to appear. Kasim ran up and instantly got vaporized by his firestorm. We backed off and portaled out to revive him and he got instantly killed by Diablo's Cold melee attack. Okay, let's try this without him then.
That was the strategy. Diablo wouldn't focus on the valk long when calabi was in range, so she was taking some serious damage from his melee and firestorm attacks. In retrospect, I should have done some gear switching to make sure my FR was maxed on my axe switch for this fight. Calabi would back off a few steps and let D go for the valk, then run in and whack away applying CB and OW and tanking him for a while. We were making good progress when he decided to do a series of firestorms, which caused us to use up the rest of our belt's worth of rejuvs. So we made some distance and made a new portal to town (the one in the screenie was far too close). We resurrected Kasim, refilled our belt, and went back to continue the fight.
We got through the portal and were sprinting for the big guy when all of a sudden we got bone prisoned. We could see Diablo at the edge of the screen moving towards us. This is not good. We had brought our teleport staff with us in the inventory, but forgot to switch it for our axe before re-entering the portal. What a foolish mistake to make at this stage of the game! We saw him winding up for a lightning hose, switched to our staff as quickly as we could, and managed to teleport out of the prison just as the hose hit it. Way too close for comfort. I have no idea if we would have been able to break out with our axe faster, but I certainly didn't want to risk it. Right after this, Kasim got fried again. So we settled in the same as before, and with another belt-full of full rejuvs we got Diablo slivered. Kasim was resurrected, we switched out to full mf gear, and went back in for the kill.
This is what a Hell Diablo kill with over 400%mf looks like, apparently. We have found absolutely nothing of use from any Act Boss in Hell, despite doing them all with over 400 mf. At least they're consistent!
I could have done several things differently in that fight to make it safer. I could have equipped the teleport staff (I swear I meant to!), or better yet just ran back from the WP instead of portalling back. We also should have boosted fire and lighting resists on the axe switch to max. Calabi is usually such a safe character that I guess I let my guard down. Lesson learned, we will not get lazy in Act V!
So with that done, we went back to NM and socketed Calabi's helm with the PRuby. I'm still not sure if the Sol would be a better option, but I figured it only counts towards physical damage, whereas +life covers elemental as well. I'm happy with it for now, but if a better option comes along, I've got lots of Hel runes lying around.
Here is a snapshot of what Calabi's stats look like in her (most likely) final gear while she hangs out with the Barbarians for a while:
Resists are currently 56/60/71/41 on her axe switch. We will do a full gear breakdown when her journey is complete.
Recent finds (other than what's listed above):
- a few elite polearms with the right amount of sockets, that's about it.
Conqueror Calabi the Axe-wielding Amazon, with Kasim the Blessed Aim Guard - lvl 87, Hell Harrogath
Calabi also made progress yesterday, first by doing some muling and switching into what will be her final gear (barring socket quests or big finds). Feeling much better about her life total, she then travelled down into the River of Flame to see what she could find. Almost right away she was presented with this:
Shimmering Grand Charm of Sustenance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 37
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x7ea40900
+29 to Life
All Resistances +14
Not a bad start to the session!
Hephasto was a little kitten. We moved down so we could get a screenie where you could read the mods, but then Calabi got in there and her CB/OW did the trick in no time. Her Gore Riders are quickly becoming a huge part of her success, never underestimate the power of those mods. The Hellforge was not what we had hoped for. We used our remaining Fal for Kasim's end-game armor (Lionheart) back in Act 2, because we didn't want to hold out for Obedience and never see a Ko. Now we have the equivalent of 2, if we cube our Lum runes.
Oh well, it was the right decision at the time, and you never know what you're going to find, so I can't regret it too much.We moved up through the rest of the River with no problems. I guess the monsters had caught wind of us coming because they set up a little roadblock for us on the bridges. They didn't think it through very well though, since Kasim 2-shots them all, even on /p5.
The Chaos Sanctuary was a little tricky, as it was filled with Doom Knights. We had to lure them far away from their mages, as 3-4 of them would easily destroy the Decoy even without curses like Decrep and Amp on us. So we had to lead them away and then seperate them into manageable groups for Calabi and Kasim to take down safely.
Since a big theme for me in this tournament has been being a broken record about how awesome Slow Missiles is, here's another example! This conviction Pit Lord boss pack should have been quite tricky to deal with:
But with SM, their infernos are basically just for show. As long as we could keep Kasim out of the LE spark paths, he had no trouble whatsoever.
The seal bosses were done without issue, we had to portal out of the dead ends at De Seis and the Infector and run back from the WP. But other than that small inconvenience, it was easy to separate the minions and take them in manageable groups.
We lowered the players setting to 3 and hit the last seal, ready to face Diablo. We ran in, set up our decoy at the spawn point, and waited for him to appear. Kasim ran up and instantly got vaporized by his firestorm. We backed off and portaled out to revive him and he got instantly killed by Diablo's Cold melee attack. Okay, let's try this without him then.
That was the strategy. Diablo wouldn't focus on the valk long when calabi was in range, so she was taking some serious damage from his melee and firestorm attacks. In retrospect, I should have done some gear switching to make sure my FR was maxed on my axe switch for this fight. Calabi would back off a few steps and let D go for the valk, then run in and whack away applying CB and OW and tanking him for a while. We were making good progress when he decided to do a series of firestorms, which caused us to use up the rest of our belt's worth of rejuvs. So we made some distance and made a new portal to town (the one in the screenie was far too close). We resurrected Kasim, refilled our belt, and went back to continue the fight.
We got through the portal and were sprinting for the big guy when all of a sudden we got bone prisoned. We could see Diablo at the edge of the screen moving towards us. This is not good. We had brought our teleport staff with us in the inventory, but forgot to switch it for our axe before re-entering the portal. What a foolish mistake to make at this stage of the game! We saw him winding up for a lightning hose, switched to our staff as quickly as we could, and managed to teleport out of the prison just as the hose hit it. Way too close for comfort. I have no idea if we would have been able to break out with our axe faster, but I certainly didn't want to risk it. Right after this, Kasim got fried again. So we settled in the same as before, and with another belt-full of full rejuvs we got Diablo slivered. Kasim was resurrected, we switched out to full mf gear, and went back in for the kill.
This is what a Hell Diablo kill with over 400%mf looks like, apparently.
We have found absolutely nothing of use from any Act Boss in Hell, despite doing them all with over 400 mf. At least they're consistent!I could have done several things differently in that fight to make it safer. I could have equipped the teleport staff (I swear I meant to!), or better yet just ran back from the WP instead of portalling back. We also should have boosted fire and lighting resists on the axe switch to max. Calabi is usually such a safe character that I guess I let my guard down. Lesson learned, we will not get lazy in Act V!
So with that done, we went back to NM and socketed Calabi's helm with the PRuby. I'm still not sure if the Sol would be a better option, but I figured it only counts towards physical damage, whereas +life covers elemental as well. I'm happy with it for now, but if a better option comes along, I've got lots of Hel runes lying around.
Here is a snapshot of what Calabi's stats look like in her (most likely) final gear while she hangs out with the Barbarians for a while:
Resists are currently 56/60/71/41 on her axe switch. We will do a full gear breakdown when her journey is complete.
Recent finds (other than what's listed above):
- a few elite polearms with the right amount of sockets, that's about it.
Conqueror Calabi the Axe-wielding Amazon, with Kasim the Blessed Aim Guard - lvl 87, Hell Harrogath
- Mar 19, 2020
- 3,349
- 1,404
- 113
Passive Aggressive Tournament - March 9, 2015
I didn't get as much time with Calabi as I would have liked this weekend due to RL getting in the way, but there was some progress. She left Harrogath and travelled up the Bloody foothills. It was populated with burning dead archers, which was not as dangerous as I thought it would be. It helps that she has well over 50% change to avoid ranged attacks, plus 38% blocking on her shield switch. Shenk spawned with Teleportation which was incredbily handy since he almost immediately tele'd away from his pack, meaning we could kill all his minions in peace without him converting them to the exploder-type monsters, which would have wasted the drops (and exp I believe).
The Frigid Highlands got interesting when we met up with with this gal's pack.
We tried to use the doorways to bottleneck the group so that Kasim and Calabi could hit them over the valk's shoulder, but they just wouldn't stay put. They killed Kasim once (or twice, can't remember), so we had to be quite careful when taking the on, hence why I could only take the screeniw once most of them had been killed. So after that fight, we moved on only to be immediately greeted by these lovely ladies. As you can see by the archer firing at Calabi, this group was also might enchanted, and had to be handled with care. Archers can be tough to begin with when out in the open like this, as they run around a ton. The screenshot gives you a decent show of how unorganized the fighting can be with them.
We had a bit of a scary run-in in Abaddon when we were met with this Extra fast, Fanaticism enchanted Hell witch pack.
This was taken once the craziness had all calmed down, but essentially this whole area was filled, and I mean FILLED with witches. This was especially scary when you consider the following posted in the d2 wiki:
Amp happens, of course, to be their curse of choice. So this whole section had to be taken with extreme care. As you can see there was a shaman boss hanging around as well, which didn't make things any easier, since Kasim and the valk would often get distracted with the carvers that kept getting resurrected. I like these areas of the game, they can really throw some challenging situations at you sometimes!
So we got through that ordeal and worked our way up to the Crystalline Passage. We drew more Succubi, Snakes, and Ghosts. The snakes and Succubi were mostly not a problem, but having all those PI ghosts sure could slow things down. Luckily, we still had our demon limb in the stash, so we decided to try it out and enchant everyone. What a difference! Apparently, when ghosts spawn as guest monsters (as they did here) they have 0 fire resistance (normally they have 50)! This was great, and even though the enchant damage isn't huge on the demon limb's charges, it was more than enough to speed things up considerably. We grabbed the WP and that is where Calabi is sitting now, waiting to finish clearing the passage, then go and save Anya.
Other finds:
- Wormskull
- Tal Rasha's belt
Conqueror Calabi the Axe-wielding Amazon, with Kasim the Blessed Aim Guard - lvl 87, Hell Crystalline Passage
I didn't get as much time with Calabi as I would have liked this weekend due to RL getting in the way, but there was some progress. She left Harrogath and travelled up the Bloody foothills. It was populated with burning dead archers, which was not as dangerous as I thought it would be. It helps that she has well over 50% change to avoid ranged attacks, plus 38% blocking on her shield switch. Shenk spawned with Teleportation which was incredbily handy since he almost immediately tele'd away from his pack, meaning we could kill all his minions in peace without him converting them to the exploder-type monsters, which would have wasted the drops (and exp I believe).
The Frigid Highlands got interesting when we met up with with this gal's pack.
We tried to use the doorways to bottleneck the group so that Kasim and Calabi could hit them over the valk's shoulder, but they just wouldn't stay put. They killed Kasim once (or twice, can't remember), so we had to be quite careful when taking the on, hence why I could only take the screeniw once most of them had been killed. So after that fight, we moved on only to be immediately greeted by these lovely ladies. As you can see by the archer firing at Calabi, this group was also might enchanted, and had to be handled with care. Archers can be tough to begin with when out in the open like this, as they run around a ton. The screenshot gives you a decent show of how unorganized the fighting can be with them.
We had a bit of a scary run-in in Abaddon when we were met with this Extra fast, Fanaticism enchanted Hell witch pack.
This was taken once the craziness had all calmed down, but essentially this whole area was filled, and I mean FILLED with witches. This was especially scary when you consider the following posted in the d2 wiki:
Bloodstar projectile attacks deal physical damage, and always hit, though they can be blocked or dodged. Beware these when cursed with Amplify Damage.
Amp happens, of course, to be their curse of choice. So this whole section had to be taken with extreme care. As you can see there was a shaman boss hanging around as well, which didn't make things any easier, since Kasim and the valk would often get distracted with the carvers that kept getting resurrected. I like these areas of the game, they can really throw some challenging situations at you sometimes!
So we got through that ordeal and worked our way up to the Crystalline Passage. We drew more Succubi, Snakes, and Ghosts. The snakes and Succubi were mostly not a problem, but having all those PI ghosts sure could slow things down. Luckily, we still had our demon limb in the stash, so we decided to try it out and enchant everyone. What a difference! Apparently, when ghosts spawn as guest monsters (as they did here) they have 0 fire resistance (normally they have 50)! This was great, and even though the enchant damage isn't huge on the demon limb's charges, it was more than enough to speed things up considerably. We grabbed the WP and that is where Calabi is sitting now, waiting to finish clearing the passage, then go and save Anya.
Other finds:
- Wormskull
- Tal Rasha's belt
Conqueror Calabi the Axe-wielding Amazon, with Kasim the Blessed Aim Guard - lvl 87, Hell Crystalline Passage
- Mar 19, 2020
- 3,349
- 1,404
- 113
Passive Aggressive Tournament - March 12, 2015
Calabi resumed her quest and finished clearing out the Crystalline Passage before heading down to try and save Anya. She drew Lancers, Snakes, and Prowling Dead in the Frozen River. The lack of Gloams made it very easy, and not at all memorable. At least Anya was pleased to be back in town. As usual, we decided to clear up to and including the Frozen Tundra before taking on Nihlathak's Temple. The Glacial Trail started off on a rockey note, when this boss pack turned out to be very hard to seperate. As you can see they had no problem killing Kasim. In fact, they killed him about 7 times. It was a bit nerve wracking, as we hadn't explored alot yet (see minimap) and really didn't want to wake anything else up. We ended up getting pushed right back to the entrance, left Kasim dead, and had the valk take them while the decoy took some pressure off. The rest of the Glacial Trail was easy, and the Icy Cavern went pretty well, although there were a couple spots where we had to be quite careful with Ghost and Succubi boss packs. Here is a fun SS to show what we had to deal with: (did I mention I LOVE Slow MIssiles?)
The Frozen Tundra was easy, so once it and it's accompanying Hell portal (Infernal Pit?) were cleared out, we took a break to do some muling. In came the 'Nadir' helm, and the 'Black' flail, as preparation and insurance for the Halls of Vaught. So in through the portal we went. Pindle's garden was easy, we managed to get into a good spot and use the pillars and bushes to funnel the reanimators into easily manageable groups for Kasim and the valk. The whole garden was cleared from this point with no problems:
Once we were done with them, we woke old Pindle up, and drew him out into the garden to take him where there was enough space. With Pindle dead, and his drop useless, we went down the stairs. Level 1 was cleared without trouble, we drew all easy monsters (flayers, devilkin, I can't even remember the third draw, maybe apes). In Level 2 we met up with a pack right off the bat that had the potential to be absolutely terrifying, as we had basically nowhere to retreat to. We had to constantly spam Decoy to keep the boss and 1 or 2 minions busy, while Kasim and the valk whittled the others down. It took some time, as these guys have 66% Physical Resistance. Luckily we kept them contained, and they went down without issue, it sure was tense though! After clearing the rest of the level with no hiccups, and so it was time to go down and face Nilly.
We descended the stairs and were immediately rushed by a group of Ghosts. As we were dealing with them some Prowling dead came creeping in from off screen. Good, those are both very manageable monster types, even if they are slightly annoying. We managed to back them all into a corner and killed them with no scares, then went back to town to use Demon Limb to enchant the three of us so that the Ghosts would go more quickly. We crept down the first wing, going as slowly as possible until we found out what the third monster draw would be. We made it through the big room of the first wing and then we saw it. A little glimmer of green, it was Tomb Vipers. So we backed off and portalled back to town, with a big decision on our hands. We had come so far, it was really disappointing that we would lose the (almost entirely /p5) full clear at this point to those damned bugged vipers, but losing a character to such a ridiculous bug and not knowing if we would have been able to complete the journey would be really tough to get over. So after alot of debating, we took the WP up to the frozen tundra to continue on to the Ancient's Way and try to forget the fact that there would just have to be some monsters left to live out their days in the Halls of Vaught in peace. Sometimes you just have to make the tough decision.
Just kidding
Calabi wasn't going to let the full clear slip away now. It was either them or her. So she strapped on her 'Nadir' Helm and jumped back down the portal knowing full well in an instant it could all be over. We pasted ourselves to a wall where the vipers couldn't get us, and tried to come up with a game plan. I say "tried", because the valk instantly rounded the corner and woke them all up. CoS was cast, Slow Missiles was cast (I had no idea if it did anything to help with the bug, but I really didn't want to find out). In came the green, and then this happened:
Do you see what I see? The valk must be immune to poison, what a lucky break! Calabi stood exactly where you see her, and the snakes eventually came up to greet the valk. Kasim was vaporized, but the valk killed the vipers. Thank goodness they don't stand much of a chance against physical damage, they went down with no problem. We VERY SLOWLY cleared out the rest of the wing, and with a renewed sense of courage (mixed with extreme caution and terror) we started our second wing. There were only a few snakes in the end room, and the valk had no trouble with them as Calabi cowered around a corner, throwing decoys at them and keeping them blinded with CoS. This wing housed the dreaded Evil Urn, so we resurrected Kasim, put a decoy up where we thought (hoped) they would spawn, and hit the urn.
Vipers, great.
Calabi tore outta there like you wouldn't believe, and threw a decoy into the pack. Kasim was dead instantly, the valk took on the boss, and the decoy kept the minions busy:
These mods sent shivers down my spine. This is the only time in my D2 career that I can remember being absolutely terrified of a boss because it had Teleportation as a mod. The last thing I needed was for this snake to tele close to Calabi and hit her with the green stuff. Luckily, the boss was too busy with the valk to teleport, so the fight actually went quite well. Here is the valk's victory shot on her pile of corpses(including Kasim's). Amazing. I couldn't believe this was happening, but I didn't want to get even remotely comfortable, as all it takes is for a couple poison spears to make it through and it's curtains. The third wing was easy, as it only had a couple snakes, and they never even let off any spears. Okay, it was time for Nihlathak's wing.
Here Calabi took a page out of Sissy's books and made use of the 'Black' flail she had muled in. We got a lucky break and didn't have any vipers in Nilly's room, but we did have one more curveball for us. His aura was Holy Freeze, so it was tough to track him down, and even tougher to get any decent damange in once he hit us with his frost inferno. So we crawled around the room while he teleported back and forth, raising minions and keeping Kasim and the valk distracted. We finally caught up to him, and were whittling him down when things went haywire. Kasim died (completely my fault for being negligent with the rejuvs), one of his minions went "frenzied" and exploded while Calabi was swinging her axe. Since she was super chilled, she had no time to switch weapons and CE the corpse. Nilly got to it first:
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We still had the CoS helm on, so were down by almost 100 life from what we were used to, not to mention being on axe switch so our resists weren't maxed(although they are quite close on the axe switch now). We juvved (obviously), portalled to resurrect Kasim, and collected ourselves. Okay, no more funny business, and no more being stingy with the purples! We charged Nilhathak, making sure to switch weapons and stop attacking if there were any minions out at all. We tracked him down, and soon it was all over.
That was insane. I have never been so tense while playing D2 before. I would have been incredibly upset had Nihlathak gotten us with that CE after successfully taking on the Vipers, but thankfully Calabi's obsession with boosting her life seems to have paid off big time!
Well after that we decided to reward ourselves by immortalizing our most prized possession:
Now please excuse me while I go try and find some way to lower my heart rate.
Conqueror Calabi the Axe-wielding Amazon, with Kasim the Blessed Aim Guard - lvl 88, Hell Ancient's Way
Calabi resumed her quest and finished clearing out the Crystalline Passage before heading down to try and save Anya. She drew Lancers, Snakes, and Prowling Dead in the Frozen River. The lack of Gloams made it very easy, and not at all memorable. At least Anya was pleased to be back in town. As usual, we decided to clear up to and including the Frozen Tundra before taking on Nihlathak's Temple. The Glacial Trail started off on a rockey note, when this boss pack turned out to be very hard to seperate. As you can see they had no problem killing Kasim. In fact, they killed him about 7 times. It was a bit nerve wracking, as we hadn't explored alot yet (see minimap) and really didn't want to wake anything else up. We ended up getting pushed right back to the entrance, left Kasim dead, and had the valk take them while the decoy took some pressure off. The rest of the Glacial Trail was easy, and the Icy Cavern went pretty well, although there were a couple spots where we had to be quite careful with Ghost and Succubi boss packs. Here is a fun SS to show what we had to deal with: (did I mention I LOVE Slow MIssiles?)
The Frozen Tundra was easy, so once it and it's accompanying Hell portal (Infernal Pit?) were cleared out, we took a break to do some muling. In came the 'Nadir' helm, and the 'Black' flail, as preparation and insurance for the Halls of Vaught. So in through the portal we went. Pindle's garden was easy, we managed to get into a good spot and use the pillars and bushes to funnel the reanimators into easily manageable groups for Kasim and the valk. The whole garden was cleared from this point with no problems:
Once we were done with them, we woke old Pindle up, and drew him out into the garden to take him where there was enough space. With Pindle dead, and his drop useless, we went down the stairs. Level 1 was cleared without trouble, we drew all easy monsters (flayers, devilkin, I can't even remember the third draw, maybe apes). In Level 2 we met up with a pack right off the bat that had the potential to be absolutely terrifying, as we had basically nowhere to retreat to. We had to constantly spam Decoy to keep the boss and 1 or 2 minions busy, while Kasim and the valk whittled the others down. It took some time, as these guys have 66% Physical Resistance. Luckily we kept them contained, and they went down without issue, it sure was tense though! After clearing the rest of the level with no hiccups, and so it was time to go down and face Nilly.
We descended the stairs and were immediately rushed by a group of Ghosts. As we were dealing with them some Prowling dead came creeping in from off screen. Good, those are both very manageable monster types, even if they are slightly annoying. We managed to back them all into a corner and killed them with no scares, then went back to town to use Demon Limb to enchant the three of us so that the Ghosts would go more quickly. We crept down the first wing, going as slowly as possible until we found out what the third monster draw would be. We made it through the big room of the first wing and then we saw it. A little glimmer of green, it was Tomb Vipers. So we backed off and portalled back to town, with a big decision on our hands. We had come so far, it was really disappointing that we would lose the (almost entirely /p5) full clear at this point to those damned bugged vipers, but losing a character to such a ridiculous bug and not knowing if we would have been able to complete the journey would be really tough to get over. So after alot of debating, we took the WP up to the frozen tundra to continue on to the Ancient's Way and try to forget the fact that there would just have to be some monsters left to live out their days in the Halls of Vaught in peace. Sometimes you just have to make the tough decision.
Just kidding
Calabi wasn't going to let the full clear slip away now. It was either them or her. So she strapped on her 'Nadir' Helm and jumped back down the portal knowing full well in an instant it could all be over. We pasted ourselves to a wall where the vipers couldn't get us, and tried to come up with a game plan. I say "tried", because the valk instantly rounded the corner and woke them all up. CoS was cast, Slow Missiles was cast (I had no idea if it did anything to help with the bug, but I really didn't want to find out). In came the green, and then this happened:
Do you see what I see? The valk must be immune to poison, what a lucky break! Calabi stood exactly where you see her, and the snakes eventually came up to greet the valk. Kasim was vaporized, but the valk killed the vipers. Thank goodness they don't stand much of a chance against physical damage, they went down with no problem. We VERY SLOWLY cleared out the rest of the wing, and with a renewed sense of courage (mixed with extreme caution and terror) we started our second wing. There were only a few snakes in the end room, and the valk had no trouble with them as Calabi cowered around a corner, throwing decoys at them and keeping them blinded with CoS. This wing housed the dreaded Evil Urn, so we resurrected Kasim, put a decoy up where we thought (hoped) they would spawn, and hit the urn.
Vipers, great.
Calabi tore outta there like you wouldn't believe, and threw a decoy into the pack. Kasim was dead instantly, the valk took on the boss, and the decoy kept the minions busy:
These mods sent shivers down my spine. This is the only time in my D2 career that I can remember being absolutely terrified of a boss because it had Teleportation as a mod. The last thing I needed was for this snake to tele close to Calabi and hit her with the green stuff. Luckily, the boss was too busy with the valk to teleport, so the fight actually went quite well. Here is the valk's victory shot on her pile of corpses(including Kasim's). Amazing. I couldn't believe this was happening, but I didn't want to get even remotely comfortable, as all it takes is for a couple poison spears to make it through and it's curtains. The third wing was easy, as it only had a couple snakes, and they never even let off any spears. Okay, it was time for Nihlathak's wing.
Here Calabi took a page out of Sissy's books and made use of the 'Black' flail she had muled in. We got a lucky break and didn't have any vipers in Nilly's room, but we did have one more curveball for us. His aura was Holy Freeze, so it was tough to track him down, and even tougher to get any decent damange in once he hit us with his frost inferno. So we crawled around the room while he teleported back and forth, raising minions and keeping Kasim and the valk distracted. We finally caught up to him, and were whittling him down when things went haywire. Kasim died (completely my fault for being negligent with the rejuvs), one of his minions went "frenzied" and exploded while Calabi was swinging her axe. Since she was super chilled, she had no time to switch weapons and CE the corpse. Nilly got to it first:
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We still had the CoS helm on, so were down by almost 100 life from what we were used to, not to mention being on axe switch so our resists weren't maxed(although they are quite close on the axe switch now). We juvved (obviously), portalled to resurrect Kasim, and collected ourselves. Okay, no more funny business, and no more being stingy with the purples! We charged Nilhathak, making sure to switch weapons and stop attacking if there were any minions out at all. We tracked him down, and soon it was all over.
That was insane. I have never been so tense while playing D2 before. I would have been incredibly upset had Nihlathak gotten us with that CE after successfully taking on the Vipers, but thankfully Calabi's obsession with boosting her life seems to have paid off big time!
Well after that we decided to reward ourselves by immortalizing our most prized possession:
Now please excuse me while I go try and find some way to lower my heart rate.
Conqueror Calabi the Axe-wielding Amazon, with Kasim the Blessed Aim Guard - lvl 88, Hell Ancient's Way
Google
