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Quest: Cube Grail, v1
- Thread starter Swamigoon
- Start date
Ok... but no one has rerolled a rare item with a SoJ, right? Right?
Definitely not me! I only have one
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@Peytron , I also only have one SoJ so far. I'm delaying the pain...
His hellforge runes were eth, lum, and fal.
During the recent MFO, Uncia went from level 81 to level 83 in Mausoleum runs, and was level 85 after he defeated Baal and put down a few cows. I went through all of the exceptional rare items I had collected and GoMuled, and used the upgrade recipes on what I thought were the best weapon and armor:
The combination of high enhanced damage and chance to curse were the two things that made me decide to upgrade it. I had hoped to upgrade an etheral dimensional sword instead, but I never found one with any decent mods on it.
I had collected a few exceptional class specific armors: pelts, primal helms, auric shields, and shrunken heads. For some reason, I didn't feel like upgrading any of them. This mediocre armor seemed to be the one that I might actually use after upgrading it, probably on a mercenary with some topazes, so I did.
So that's six heroes brought to matriarch/patriarch during this little quest. I had also started another sorceress to use in the MFO, but I'm going to leave her parked a little bit longer. There's something about completing a "sept" that I'm sure many of you here understand, so to that end, I think I will continue this project with a berzerker.
This name is an old middle-eastern monetary unit. I had also named the paladin after an obscure historical unit of currency, so when Qursh came up in the output of my random 5-letter dictionary word searcher, it seemed appropriate.
His hellforge runes were eth, lum, and fal.
The combination of high enhanced damage and chance to curse were the two things that made me decide to upgrade it. I had hoped to upgrade an etheral dimensional sword instead, but I never found one with any decent mods on it.
I had collected a few exceptional class specific armors: pelts, primal helms, auric shields, and shrunken heads. For some reason, I didn't feel like upgrading any of them. This mediocre armor seemed to be the one that I might actually use after upgrading it, probably on a mercenary with some topazes, so I did.
This name is an old middle-eastern monetary unit. I had also named the paladin after an obscure historical unit of currency, so when Qursh came up in the output of my random 5-letter dictionary word searcher, it seemed appropriate.
Code:
Progress: 109 recipes completed. The remaining eight:
upgrade: add socket to rare (rare + SoJ + 3 x perfect skull)
upgrade: rerolled higher rare (rare + SoJ + perfect skull)
rune: Lo (2 x Ohm + diamond)
rune: Sur (2 x Lo + flawless topaz)
rune: Ber (2 x Sur + flawless amethyst)
rune: Jah (2 x Ber + flawless sapphire)
rune: Cham (2 x Jah + flawless ruby)
rune: Zod (2 x Cham + flawless emerald)Small update: Qursh the berzerker just started Hell act 5, and he's been fun. No new recipes to report. Still two SoJ recipes and six rune recipes to go. I think the game knows my quest, and is actively trying to thwart it. The [expletive censored] game taunts me by delivering THE [expletive censored] rune that I can't be used in ANY [expletive censored] rune upgrade recipe:
It's another first-time-find for me, so I really should be grateful, but no - I'm actually disappointed/complaining about this...
On the other hand, I do have an ethereal Ribcracker stashed...
It's another first-time-find for me, so I really should be grateful, but no - I'm actually disappointed/complaining about this...
On the other hand, I do have an ethereal Ribcracker stashed...
Qursh the Berzerker's forge runes were tir, ko, and lem. He completes my first ever "Sept!" I suppose that's a nifty milestone accomplishment to briefly celebrate, before I continue pursuit of this little cube recipe grail quest.
Barbarian's don't usually get any minion summoning skills, but Qursh got lucky: he wore a Carrion Wind unique ring from NM act 4 through most of Hell act 4. With that ring, he was able to use spell charges to summon a poison creeper minion. Every time he summoned one, it only cost a few thousand gold to recharge the ring, so I felt free to use it liberally. I think I made him recast that green weed well over two hundred times, and for many battles it provided a very nice distractor and monster poisoner. Anyway, I think I can claim that this was an all-minion-summoner "sept," right? (Okay, I concede that's too much of a semantic stretch - the paladin summoned fist-of-the-heavens lightning stomps from the sky, but I suppose those aren't really "minions...")
No new recipes to report yet, but with luck I'll transmute one of the remaining formulas soon. However, I did re-use a previously checked-off recipe, with a pretty interesting result:
I think that's a pretty nice level 1 item! Then I tried the same recipe a few more times, but the results weren't quite as nice:
Before he achieved patriarch status, I used Qursh as a Lower Kurast runner for ten hours in the recent "Finding the Balance" tournament. I used Xylia the blizzard sorceress in the Ancient Tunnels for the other ten hours. I had also used Xylia in the 2020 summer MFO, and with all of those AT runs she is level 89 and getting pretty close to 90. Anyway, after letting Qursh go berzerk on some hell difficulty cows, I went back to Xylia. After all of her AT runs, she finally defeated Duriel, and moved on to hell-difficulty act 3.
I also spent some time with Vinca, running NM quest-bugged Andy, looking for another SoJ, but without luck. After (I think) 600 more NM Andy runs, I have GoMuled over a hundred ilvl 49 Cathan's Seal rings, 32 ilvl 49 Manald Heals, 27 ilvl 49 Nagelrings, and 51 ilvl 49 Angelic Halos, but still no second SoJ.
As a sort of "chapter divder," I reported some more details about the seven characters I matted/patted so far on this quest. For the next "chapter," I decided to start another paladin.
I guess I'm sort-of working backward through the alphabet with random name choices. According to some online dictionaries, peavy is an alternate spelling for "peavey," a long spear with a hook added at the pointy end, used for rolling/positioning raw lumber as it's getting transported to a sawmill. I figured the name seemed appropriate, since one of my plans with him involves my recently acquired ethereal Hone Sundan.
I'm planning to use a build I have never tried before: Vengeance on LMB, and the various defensive elemental auras that synergize Vengeance on RMB. I'm hoping that as he gets a little way into nightmare difficulty, I can try out some new weapons: an ethereal Hone Sundan unique yari and a Lightsabre unique phase blade, and when he gets to hell difficulty, the Astreon's Iron Ward unique caduceus that dropped for me in the recent MFO tournament.
We'll just see whether he'll have any luck in collecting ingredients for the remaining cube recipes.
I guess I'm sort-of working backward through the alphabet with random name choices. According to some online dictionaries, peavy is an alternate spelling for "peavey," a long spear with a hook added at the pointy end, used for rolling/positioning raw lumber as it's getting transported to a sawmill. I figured the name seemed appropriate, since one of my plans with him involves my recently acquired ethereal Hone Sundan.
I'm planning to use a build I have never tried before: Vengeance on LMB, and the various defensive elemental auras that synergize Vengeance on RMB. I'm hoping that as he gets a little way into nightmare difficulty, I can try out some new weapons: an ethereal Hone Sundan unique yari and a Lightsabre unique phase blade, and when he gets to hell difficulty, the Astreon's Iron Ward unique caduceus that dropped for me in the recent MFO tournament.
We'll just see whether he'll have any luck in collecting ingredients for the remaining cube recipes.
He was level 85 when he defeated hell Baal. First act 4 forge coughed up an ith rune. NM and Hell forges were Hel and Lem:
I waited until level 85 to try the last imbue by Charsi:
Nice staffmods, but I confess I was slightly disappointed that the enhanced damage wasn't as high as I hoped.
This one was very fun. Peavy was my first to use a set or unique item for every single bit of gear, including his hireling. This vengenace paladin has a similar playstyle as my berzerker Qursh, in that he melee attacks just one monster at a time. He maxed Vengeance and three of the synergies (Resist Fire, Resist Lightning, and Salvation), with the other 13 skill points in the other synergy (Resist Cold). His total damage per hit is about half that of the berzerker, but his resistances were much higher due to the resist auras, and he had better defense. Even when a unique enemy brought a conviction aura, Peavy's salvation aura meant that he still had at least positive (about 15-20%) fire/cold/lightning resistances in Hell difficulty, and with no enemy conviction, his resistances were max-pegged at 85% fire/lightning and 81% cold. The ethereal Hone Sundan yari and the Astreon's Iron Ward caduceus were excellent vengeance weapons, and 195 stat points in strength helped him achieve max damage numbers of over 4500 with the yari and over 3800 with the caduceus. He had enough strength to wear and try the Veil of Steel unique spired helm that I found in the MFO. But I felt he fought longer and better with the Vampire Gaze unique grim helm, which let him steal more life and mana with each strike, so he wore that through most of hell difficulty. He also had 145 points in dexterity, helping him keep a 75% block rate with his Herald of Zakarum unique gilded shield until he gained some levels in hell act 5. (Between levels 82 and 85, his block rate slowly decreased down to 72%). The attack rating bonus from his maxed vengeance skill meant that he could hit most enemies with approximately 4 out of every 5 attacks (80%), and when the mercenary shined her Inner Sight skill, successful hits seemed to go up to about 19 out of every 20 attacks (95%).
Among his notable finds were another pul rune and a couple of elite swords: a Sazabi's Cobalt Redeemer set cryptic sword and a Doombringer unique champion sword. He ran Arcane Sanctuary, Lower Kurast, and Countess many times to collect more runes, and he was able to cube up quite a few, enough to complete two more recipes.
Next up, I'm going to go back to my favorite hero class, and try my luck with a druid and his fire skills.
This time, one of the random words starting with "o" was Oleum, an oily explosive substance composed of sulphuric acid. I figured that would be an appropriate name for a fire druid. After playing a couple of one-monster-at-a-time fighters, it will be nice to have some area-of-effect attacks again!
Code:
Progress: 111 recipes met. The six still to meet:
upgrade: add socket to rare (rare + SoJ + 3 x perfect skull)
upgrade: rerolled higher rare (rare + SoJ + perfect skull)
rune: Ber (2 x Sur + flawless amethyst)
rune: Jah (2 x Ber + flawless sapphire)
rune: Cham (2 x Jah + flawless ruby)
rune: Zod (2 x Cham + flawless emerald)
Oleum arrived in act 5 a couple of weeks ago. The moment he defeated hell difficulty Ancients today, he clanged up to level 85. That battle was actually easier than I expected. His cold-aura town guard mercenary fell to the Ancients pretty quickly, but Madawc and Korlic were eliminated a couple of minutes later by scores of fissures under their feet and a few armageddon meteors atop their heads. After that, he coaxed fire-immune Talic to walk over a hundred or so volcanoes for about ten or twelve minutes, after which Oleum was judged worthy to proceed into the WSK. Oleum has invested all of his skill points in the elemental skill tree, but he's wearing a nice rare pelt that lets him summon a solar creeper. Recasting the vine turned out to distract the enemies very effectively during the Ancients' skirmish.
His most welcome finds so far have been a couple of mal runes (one in Act 2 and the other from the act 4 forge quest), a Stone Crusher unique legendary mallet in the maggot lair, and an Ormus Robes unique dusk shroud from Mephisto's hell quest drop.
Very often, after Oleum completed another quest or activated another new waypoint, I went back to Vinca the sorceress to do some more NM Andy runs. She found so many Manald Heals and Nagelrings that I sold instead of stashed many of them. But perseverance has finally rewarded her with another SoJ!
Okay, now that I finally have the "sodges" for the last two rare upgrade recipes, it's time to select something that I'm willing to reroll. I have only stashed one rare diadem. It has item level 87, and I think it was one of Peavy's imbue quest rewards:
(I actually intended to put this on Oleum, but when he reached level 64 I decided that I still preferred his +1 elemental / +3 volcano / +3 solar creeper pelt.)
Anyway, shoud I reroll this one? What do you think? Because of my own thick-headed determination, matched with my utter abandon of sense, I have indeed committed to intentionally destroy one of my pretty new Stones of Jordan as part of this cube quest, just to reroll a rare item. Is this as good a candidate ingredient as I'm going to find? Perhaps I should consider rerolling a tiara instead? I have eight rare tiaras stashed, with item levels between 81 and 90. Please let me know your thoughts!
(The formula for the new rare's item level is: 0.66 times the old rare's item level plus 0.66 times the character's level. I don't even know what to expect for an item level after it is rerolled - are item levels capped at 99, or could the recipe produce something with an even higher item level? If nobody knows, I guess I will find out soon enough.)
Regrettably, fighting Baal at /p7 didn't produce a satisfying drop.
Playing a fire druid was a blast. Every elemental skill was useful in some situation throughout hell difficulty. Armageddon may take an unpredictable amount of time to hit a nearby monster, but when it finally does, it hits satisfyingly hard.
I decided to reroll a tiara instead of the rare diadem. I gave it to the blizzard sorceress Xylia, who had leveled up to 90 thanks to her tournaments.
GoMule showed that the ingredient had item level 88:
Goodbye, sweet Stone of Jordan; it was nice having you for a short time.
As I hoped, I got a skiller Tiara out of the recipe! Not much better than the Diadem, though, which also happens to be a druid elemental skiller.
I checked the result with GoMule, and I now have evidence that there's a strict cap on item levels in the game. The new rare tiara I obtained from this recipe is indistinguishable from any rare tiara that could have been dropped by hell difficulty Baal:
(Without an item level cap, it would have had an item level of: floor(.66 x 88) + floor(.66 x 90) = 117.)
Goodbye, sweet Stone of Jordan; it was nice having you for a short time.
As I hoped, I got a skiller Tiara out of the recipe! Not much better than the Diadem, though, which also happens to be a druid elemental skiller.
I checked the result with GoMule, and I now have evidence that there's a strict cap on item levels in the game. The new rare tiara I obtained from this recipe is indistinguishable from any rare tiara that could have been dropped by hell difficulty Baal:
(Without an item level cap, it would have had an item level of: floor(.66 x 88) + floor(.66 x 90) = 117.)
Alas, the result wasn't something I was excited to socket with the other SoJ recipe, so I'm going to hold out a bit longer and see if I can get a sufficiently worthy rare item. That Stone of Jordan was a terribly steep sacrifice for a new random rare. Losing the other SoJ to the "add socket to rare" recipe will feel like an even steeper price to pay, especially when I consider that, with much less effort, Larzuk could do it for me up to three times per character.
I've decided to try a poison necromancer next for this project. I'm hoping to learn how some of you folks do effective runs with such a build, with anticipation that he could be more efficient at grinding areas for some nice transmutable runes.
Code:
Progress: 112 recipes. The remaining five to transmute:
upgrade: add socket to rare (rare + SoJ + 3 x perfect skull)
rune: Ber (2 x Sur + flawless amethyst)
rune: Jah (2 x Ber + flawless sapphire)
rune: Cham (2 x Jah + flawless ruby)
rune: Zod (2 x Cham + flawless emerald)
Tried to get a random 5-letter dictionary word starting with N, but I didn't care for any of the results, so I made this one up. Noxio appears similar to a verb conjugation/derivation of the Latin word "nox," which means "damage" or "injury."
In addition to to maxing all three poison skills, I decided to spend twenty points in the Lower Resist curse.
His best finds were ber and gul runes, and some elite unique items: Warshrike winged knives, Demonhorn's Edge destroyer helm, Leviathan unique Kraken Shell, and a Gheed's Fortune (91% GF, 35% MF, 11% discount).
I gave him the ber rune that Swamp had found several months ago. Together with the other ber Noxio found in the Spider Forest, he was able to check off another rune upgrade recipe!
"Mafic" refers to volcanic magma containing magnesium and iron, so it seemed a fitting name for a fire trapper.
Code:
Progress: 113 recipes. The remaining four are:
upgrade: add socket to rare (rare + SoJ + 3 x perfect skull)
rune: Ber (2 x Sur + flawless amethyst)
rune: Cham (2 x Jah + flawless ruby)
rune: Zod (2 x Cham + flawless emerald)
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My fire-trapper Mafic has arrived in hell difficulty act 2, and she has been loads of fun to play so far! But It looks like we will have a rune-finding tournament coming soon, and I am still not completely pleased with the cow running ability of any of my characters so far. I think I'd like to pause Mafic's progress for now, and try to get a better lightning attacker ready. My last Amazon put forty points in lightning fury and a synergy, but also sunk forty points into Valkyrie and a synergy. This time, I think I'll try my luck without a Valkyrie, and with more synergies for stronger lightning attacks.
My random dictionary word searcher found another five-letter word for a unit of currency! Litas happens to be a Lithuanian historical currency unit.
My random dictionary word searcher found another five-letter word for a unit of currency! Litas happens to be a Lithuanian historical currency unit.
