- Feb 24, 2006
- 1,055
- 1,965
- 113
Thanks, @Zyr! I had forgotten how I taunted you, way back then, to muster the "intestinal fortitude" to really break Wind by expelling all of its Twister charges. 
Epilogue
A few wrap-up thoughts:
There's a new patch for D2R coming, which features a few more recipes. Since I choose to continue to play legacy LoD, I won't have opportunity to try the new transmutations. Would someone else like to use the new recipes, and post screencaps of them here?
Other accomplishments and progress:
(Okay, please forgive me for lots of navel-gazing I will do in the rest of this post... )
To keep myself interested, I participated in many tournaments (RFLs, MFOs, balance, TC3s) while I pursued my cube-recipe grail. I believe I spent at least as much time grinding various areas and superuniques as I did questing and leveling the 21 characters in my three septs.
GoMule makes it easy to track collectible items, with its bundled drop calculator and Flavie report generator. I'm actually surprised at just how much item grail progress I witnessed during the last 23.5 months that I've been chasing the cube grail. Here's a screenclip of the summary at the bottom of my current Flavie:
I'm pleased and surprised that this project made it to grail -47 as a side-effect! I counted 29 items in the the hardest-to-find treasure class, TC-87. Among the expansion set, elite unique, and class-specific items, I was lucky enough to find 12 of those 29 TC-87s during this project! That leaves 17 TC-87s yet to self-find.
Honestly, finishing a self-found item grail doesn't even feel achievable, given the abysmal odds against finding Tyrael's Might, even with gobs of speed and MF. But there are portions of the item grail that still feel somewhat achievable:
I cubed a lot of runes during this project. I picked up and stashed every dropped rune. Whenever my main GoMule stash got dangerously close to 5K items, I would spend an hour cubing stashed gems and runes. Exception: I almost never cubed any El runes to Eld nor Elds to Tir; instead, I saved and used them for low-quality cube upgrades. Most of those were unimpressive trash, but there have been occasional successes with those recipes: a +3 Amplify Damage bloodlord skull, a +3 Teeth hierophant trophy, a +3 Lycanthropy blood spirit pelts, and two +3 Dragon Talon suwayyah claws!
As a side project, I decided to complete the "Grail of Steel," which was a fun diversion.
I played "vanilla," so no RWM runewords were possible. After I crafted a Lore circlet and Strength spear for my first untwinked character and mercenary, I generally tried to avoid using any runes in runewords. However, I did make a couple of Leaf staves to help rapidly level my fire druid and fire assassin, and of course, when my agressin Elene advanced to late hell act 5, I experienced severe difficulty getting past the ancients, until after I dressed her up in Treachery. I could have put together an Enigma runeword many months ago, but I stubbornly refused, even though most participants here assured me that it would have helped me farm for runes and items so much faster.
What happens next?
In the short term, there are still two rounds left in this year's RFL. Hopefully I can collect a few more high runes. I have really enjoyed the challenge to complete three septs without using very many runewords; however, I now feel a little more liberated to make more, so I'll probably will. An Enigma should probably be my highest priority among the runewords that require high runes. There are still several builds that I want to complete in vanilla 1.14, but eventually, I imagine I'll finally give in to the peer pressure here, and install in the RWM. Also, to my delighted surprise, I have now accumulated three zod runes! I have couple of elite ethereal items (a colossus blade and a war spike) that would get six sockets if I politely asked Larzuk to craft them, so it might be fun to make and use an eBotD runeword with one or both of those. There are also two unique weapons in my GoMule stashes that I think would be fun to enhance with a zod: an ethereal Ribcracker, and an ethereal 3-socket Tomb Reaver.
Another goal that could interest me: collect +3 staffmod bases, such as those on the low-quality upgrades I mentioned above. Perhaps a collection of Leaf runeword staves that result in +9 Warmth/Inferno/Fire Bolt and +6 to each of the other seven sorceress fire skills? Perhaps some Lore runeword pelts, that give +4 to each of the 30 druid skills, or Rhyme runeword shrunken heads to enhance all 30 necromancer skills? Related to this idea: I have a tendency to collect socketed base items, anticipating their potential as runewords, but I always toss or sell items with just one socket. In the spirit of my successful Grail of Steel, and as incentive to prize items that I would otherwise throw away, it might be fun to see if I could collect a one-socket specimen of every hat, body armor, shield, and non-throwing weapon.
I have made a couple of posts so far in D2DC's Murios thread, and for now, I think I would like to keep working on that project by completing more septs, with a goal of maxing at least one new skill on each of my new characters until I have collected a stable of mats/pats with all 210 skills represented and maxed in 1.14.
There are some popular cookie-cutter builds that I still haven't figured out how to play successfully. I finally patted a zealot paladin last November, and although other players seem to love them, I don't expect I will ever want make another. I also have not yet succeeded at all with a Blessed Hammer paladin, nor with a Whirlwind barbarian, and from what I have read, those two builds are supposed to be very capable magic finders and area/boss runners, so it would probably be a good idea for me to settle down and learn how to finally enjoy playing each of those.
Challenges which are very popular among my fellow SPFers, but do not interest me, include hardcore guardians and 99ers. But I will still cheer on those here that are chasing those achievements!
Thanks, all of you, for your great suggestions and encouragement. I have become fond of the PureDiablo SPF.
Epilogue
A few wrap-up thoughts:
There's a new patch for D2R coming, which features a few more recipes. Since I choose to continue to play legacy LoD, I won't have opportunity to try the new transmutations. Would someone else like to use the new recipes, and post screencaps of them here?
Other accomplishments and progress:
(Okay, please forgive me for lots of navel-gazing I will do in the rest of this post... )
To keep myself interested, I participated in many tournaments (RFLs, MFOs, balance, TC3s) while I pursued my cube-recipe grail. I believe I spent at least as much time grinding various areas and superuniques as I did questing and leveling the 21 characters in my three septs.
GoMule makes it easy to track collectible items, with its bundled drop calculator and Flavie report generator. I'm actually surprised at just how much item grail progress I witnessed during the last 23.5 months that I've been chasing the cube grail. Here's a screenclip of the summary at the bottom of my current Flavie:
I'm pleased and surprised that this project made it to grail -47 as a side-effect! I counted 29 items in the the hardest-to-find treasure class, TC-87. Among the expansion set, elite unique, and class-specific items, I was lucky enough to find 12 of those 29 TC-87s during this project! That leaves 17 TC-87s yet to self-find.
Honestly, finishing a self-found item grail doesn't even feel achievable, given the abysmal odds against finding Tyrael's Might, even with gobs of speed and MF. But there are portions of the item grail that still feel somewhat achievable:
- the last normal unique (Torch of Iro wand, a TC-3, another rather hard-to-find treasure class),
- the last four exceptional S/Us (I'm just missing Blackhand Key grave wand, Bing Sz Wang dacian falx, Lycander's Flank ceremonial pike, and Cow King's Horns war hat),
- the last five unique jewelry pieces (BKWB and Nature's Peace rings, Rising Sun and HLW amulets, and the lightning/level-up Rainbow Facet).
I cubed a lot of runes during this project. I picked up and stashed every dropped rune. Whenever my main GoMule stash got dangerously close to 5K items, I would spend an hour cubing stashed gems and runes. Exception: I almost never cubed any El runes to Eld nor Elds to Tir; instead, I saved and used them for low-quality cube upgrades. Most of those were unimpressive trash, but there have been occasional successes with those recipes: a +3 Amplify Damage bloodlord skull, a +3 Teeth hierophant trophy, a +3 Lycanthropy blood spirit pelts, and two +3 Dragon Talon suwayyah claws!
As a side project, I decided to complete the "Grail of Steel," which was a fun diversion.
I played "vanilla," so no RWM runewords were possible. After I crafted a Lore circlet and Strength spear for my first untwinked character and mercenary, I generally tried to avoid using any runes in runewords. However, I did make a couple of Leaf staves to help rapidly level my fire druid and fire assassin, and of course, when my agressin Elene advanced to late hell act 5, I experienced severe difficulty getting past the ancients, until after I dressed her up in Treachery. I could have put together an Enigma runeword many months ago, but I stubbornly refused, even though most participants here assured me that it would have helped me farm for runes and items so much faster.
What happens next?
In the short term, there are still two rounds left in this year's RFL. Hopefully I can collect a few more high runes. I have really enjoyed the challenge to complete three septs without using very many runewords; however, I now feel a little more liberated to make more, so I'll probably will. An Enigma should probably be my highest priority among the runewords that require high runes. There are still several builds that I want to complete in vanilla 1.14, but eventually, I imagine I'll finally give in to the peer pressure here, and install in the RWM.
Also, to my delighted surprise, I have now accumulated three zod runes! I have couple of elite ethereal items (a colossus blade and a war spike) that would get six sockets if I politely asked Larzuk to craft them, so it might be fun to make and use an eBotD runeword with one or both of those. There are also two unique weapons in my GoMule stashes that I think would be fun to enhance with a zod: an ethereal Ribcracker, and an ethereal 3-socket Tomb Reaver.Another goal that could interest me: collect +3 staffmod bases, such as those on the low-quality upgrades I mentioned above. Perhaps a collection of Leaf runeword staves that result in +9 Warmth/Inferno/Fire Bolt and +6 to each of the other seven sorceress fire skills? Perhaps some Lore runeword pelts, that give +4 to each of the 30 druid skills, or Rhyme runeword shrunken heads to enhance all 30 necromancer skills? Related to this idea: I have a tendency to collect socketed base items, anticipating their potential as runewords, but I always toss or sell items with just one socket. In the spirit of my successful Grail of Steel, and as incentive to prize items that I would otherwise throw away, it might be fun to see if I could collect a one-socket specimen of every hat, body armor, shield, and non-throwing weapon.
I have made a couple of posts so far in D2DC's Murios thread, and for now, I think I would like to keep working on that project by completing more septs, with a goal of maxing at least one new skill on each of my new characters until I have collected a stable of mats/pats with all 210 skills represented and maxed in 1.14.
There are some popular cookie-cutter builds that I still haven't figured out how to play successfully. I finally patted a zealot paladin last November, and although other players seem to love them, I don't expect I will ever want make another. I also have not yet succeeded at all with a Blessed Hammer paladin, nor with a Whirlwind barbarian, and from what I have read, those two builds are supposed to be very capable magic finders and area/boss runners, so it would probably be a good idea for me to settle down and learn how to finally enjoy playing each of those.
Challenges which are very popular among my fellow SPFers, but do not interest me, include hardcore guardians and 99ers. But I will still cheer on those here that are chasing those achievements!
Thanks, all of you, for your great suggestions and encouragement. I have become fond of the PureDiablo SPF.
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