Random Tournament 2013

[endlesscircuit]

Good progress BKC, /p8 can get slow (especially with abnormal weapons) but I think it's always worth it in the end.

I'm in the exact same place actually, although in Hell. :badteeth:

Full clear up through the Dark Wood, including Tristram, on /p3. The lvl 85 Mausoleum was particularly slow going. (Everything is LI...) Had my first NDE of the whole game, really, trying to run back through the Stony Field to open up the portal to Tristram. I accidentally S & E'd before, so Rakanishu was alive and well. I tried to herd them away, with the help of my newest toy: Nadir!

+50% Enhanced Defense
+10 Defense
+30 Defense vs. Missile
Level 13 Cloak of Shadows (9 Charges)
+2 To Mana After Each Kill
+5 To Strength
-33% Extra Gold From Monsters
-3 To Light Radius

Totally useless runeword, but it has that precious crowd control - Cloak of Shadows. Well, let's just say that it was not a success. I lost the merc and became surrounded. Chugged 5 purples, kept casting CoS, and eventually an opening let me run away. I resurrected the merc, and finished touching the stones, and TP'd out of there as it opened...and then when I came back through the TP, all the stones were lit, but no portal! I guess you have to stay around to watch it open. So I S & E'd, came back, this time it was open and I was able to lure away Rakanishu and jump through. Tristram itself was a breeze.

Conqueror Tuche, Level 76 Assassin, Hell Black Marsh

 

[iMonsterEatCity]

If anyone happens to peek inside this thread anymore can you roll me up a Necromancer?

 

[endlesscircuit]

@iMonsterEatCity: Some of us are still active! Here's a necro:

Necromancer

Forever Skills:
Bone Prison
Bone Armor -> Blood Golem
Clay Golem
Bone Spear [Locked Normal]

Normal Skills:
Bone Wall
Poison Nova
Teeth
Amplify Damage

Armor:
Great Helm
Medium Armor
Large Shield -> Tower Shield
Leather Gloves
Boots
Belt
Preserved Head

Weapons:
Wand
Grim Wand
Repeating Crossbow -> Double Axe

Sorry about the roll! Bonemancer for now, I guess, but beyond that, who knows. Any rerolls?

A little update on my progress:

Tuche has now cleared all the Black Marsh, including the Tower and the Hole, on /p3. No good finds at all, and no more NDEs. The merc is still fragile, especially against archer bosspacks, but I've gotten good at managing him with a lot of town portals. In fact TP spamming feels a little like cheating (I don't have them in the belt, at least. That would be absurd.) I put on Nadir for each level of the Tower and Level 2 of the Hole, since it's got stair traps, but fortunately no stair traps at all.

Conqueror Tuche, Level 77 Assassin, Hell Tamoe Highlands

 

[iMonsterEatCity]

Please re-roll Large Shield and Repeating Crossbow.

As far as my skill re-roll: is it allowed for any skill including forever skills, or only one of my normal skills? I know the rule says it must be done at the beginning of the character.

I will almost surely lock Bone Spear as a forever skill, but that depends on my skill reroll. When you lock a forever skill, I assume it just gets added to the list giving you 4 forever skills instead of replacing one of the 3, correct?

edit: or I may choose to lock Bone Wall. That gives me some extra tanking power and two powerful methods of crowd control that synergize. Ofcourse, for killing power I would be completely subject to the whims of my merc and nm/hell skill rolls.

edit again: AD isn't a bad choice either. BA for self preservation, BP for crowd control, AD to help the moron kill quicker. Any advice before I spin myself in more circles regarding my skill choice?

As for my skill re-roll: is it possible to have a redundant roll? That is, if I choose clay golem as my re-roll, is it possible for Bone Wall to be rolled as a forever skill in its place even though it is already in my normal skills? Or would any redundancy be rerolled again?

After I get these questions answered I will most likely re-roll clay golem. I would love to have another guaranteed tank that slows nasty enemies down, but bone prison and a merc will probably be crowd control enough tbh. Bone Wall or Decrep would serve me much better than clay golem as a forever skill. Also, unless my hell skill roll includes Golem Master, gumby will probably not be that great past early NM. It just doesn't make sense to me to reroll a normal skill that will just get replaced soon anyhow, especially since I already have a great skill to lock as a forever skill.

 

[endlesscircuit]

First, the gear rerolls:

Large Shield -> Tower Shield
Repeating Crossbow -> Double Axe

Next, your questions:

1. You can reroll forever skills.

2. When you lock a normal skill, you will have 4 forever skills for future rolls, and only receive 4 rolls for nightmare and hell. (Or you can lock a skill at the start of nightmare.)

3. It is a quirk of the tournament that if you reroll a forever skill and it's the same as a normal skill, the normal skill doesn't "become" that forever skill and then you reroll the normal skill. Rather, all rerolls roll are until a new skill, neither in the present list of normal or forever skills, is found.

As far as advice goes, I don't have much experience, this being my first Random tournament.

I think that standard candidates for locking on a Necro would be crowd control (Attract, Decrepify in a sense) and killing power (Corpse Explosion). Remember that you can lock a Nightmare skill too, if you don't lock a Normal skill. Playing an underpowered fire trapper myself, I find that the merc is able to kill at a fine speed by himself, so I'm not sure if he needs Amplify Damage to survive. He definitely won't in normal or nightmare. The Clay Golem will be really fragile, but nonetheless is very useful. I never use Bone Armor on necros, not sure how useful it is. Remember that it's better to pump the synergies than the armor itself.

 

[iMonsterEatCity]

Ok then. I will lock Bone Spear as a forever skill and reroll Bone Armor.

 

[endlesscircuit]

Bone Armor -> Blood Golem (not so great...)

 

[iMonsterEatCity]

Yeah, would have preferred Bone Armor, believe it or not.

I should have read the rules closer and I would have seen that I could have chosen my weapon type to be rolled. Would've gone 2x wand 1x javelin or pilum. Oh well.

 

[iMonsterEatCity]

Thom, the bonemancer in training, is progressing just fine as a curse lackey at the moment and has rescued cain. Medium armor, Boots, and Leather Gloves are good rolls for Act I Normal, allowing me to shop 3os chain mail and gamble for the "of chance" suffix on boots and gloves. My best find so far fits right in with my item roll too:

Hotspur 
Boots 
Defense: 10 
Durability: 6 of 12 
Required Level: 5 
Fingerprint: 0x880942d8 
Item Level: 7 
Version: Expansion 1.10+ 
Adds 3 - 6 Fire Damage 
+16% Enhanced Defense 
+6 Defense 
+15 to Life 
+15% to Maximum Fire Resist 
Fire Resist +45%

Handy for areas with lots of fire damage dealers, especially CS at Ventar's seal and Diablo. Currently wearing a pair of 15%mf boots instead of these.

Not a lot of topaz luck so far, only 3. No good preserved heads yet either.

I put 3 or 4 points into clay golem and 4 or 5 into Amplify Damage. I think the AD pts were worth it, but I think investing in gumby was a mistake, albeit a not that critical one since I will respec in Act I NM anyhow. Blood Golem will probably be my golem of choice for Act bosses.

Not using bone wall hardly any yet. Only for boss packs or huge mobs to separate and thin out the crowd. My merc and the clay golem are tanking and killing just fine without any crowd control up to this point. Honestly, even with Bone Spear in hand I may spend most of normal just casting curses and managing the crowds with Bone Wall.

Thom the lvl 15 Bonemancer and Isolde the Fire Arrow Rogue Mercenary, Black Marsh next.

 

[jiansonz]

My fire trapper (or you can call her 'merc squire' becuase that is more accurate...) has been moving on in Nightmare and has now reached the last act. No real scares despite very little crowd control. Pretty much all crowd control I have is the Shadow Warrior. Good thing she is sturdy, especially against elemental damage. She impressed me with her ability to surive lots of Hydra fire in Travincal.

Still no luck with any 4s heavy armors. Not even a single white Full Plate since last time, so not even any chance to try the recipe. If this goes on for a few more levels, I can shop Larzuk for Jeweler's Full Plates as a last resort.

No real exciting finds, although I thought a Bahamut's Amulet of the Whale was pretty cool. I like magic-only prefix + suffix items.

The merc was alive about half of the time against Diablo. That Insight he holds is pretty handy for when Erica wants to spew out five Wakes of Inferno (that takes 100 mana) plus recast the Shadow Warrior often. This fighting situation was the best, with the merc at a safe distance, oblivious to his surroundings.

Elites start to drop more regularly in the next act. Highest on my wishlist are a 2s (or plain white) Heater and an ethereal Thresher (unsocketed or with 5 sockets would be best, but I'll gladly take one with 2, 3 or 4 sockets as well).


[Highlight]Erica the Assassin and Razan the Might guard, level 66, NM Bloody Foothills next[/Highlight]

 

[jiansonz]

More aggressive Shadow castings was the main key to beating Act V NM. There were very few monster packs that could take out my sturdy Shadow in less than 6 seconds, which means that I could usually just recast her when she was about to die. As long as Razan is alive, mana is not an issue thanks to Insight. So the gameplay was mostly about getting the monsters to attack the Shadow rather than Razan (or me!).

However, there were a couple of times where my fire traps were useful, or even essential. This guy provided an interesting challenge. All three of us are needed to win. Shadow must soak up nearly all damage or we won´t survive for long. I must use WoI traps or we will hardly damage him, and the merc provides easy mana for my expensive traps and keeps the boss poisoned so I do not need to work against a massive regeneration rate.

Erica reached level 68 which led me to power shop two Jeweler's Full Plates from Larzuk. The affix calculator told me that it was about 0.41% chance for a magical item to get it, or 1 in 240. A good rule of thumb is then that if I look at 240 full plates, I have about 63.2% chance to find at least one. All in all, it took just over two hours. That was OK, I was listening to music I enjoy.

I had 7 perfect topazes to put to use and could cube a last one next playing session. I had already found a plain Heater that I had cube-socketed and made Rhyme in (5/6 chance to get 2 sockets). MF for the second half of the act was now +506% for Razan's kills and +338% otherwise.

My most remarkable find wasn't thanks to MF, though. A regular critter in Halls of Pain dropped a Gul rune. I did not know it was possible to find runes that high in Nightmare.

I separated Ancients with an Amulet of Teleportation. FE Talic must have had a crappy weapon because he was no match for Razan. The combo of the the two others was too much for him, though - Cursed Korlic and Extra Strong Madawc - and Razan died after having just scratched them a little. I teleported some more and found out that the Shadow could tank Korlic forever. That meant I could just wait for my mana regeneration and keep casting Wakes of Inferno and slowly kill him. Madawc is not sturdy and has no high fire resist, so we could take him too, but it required a couple of Shadow recasts.

I used level 16 Dragon Talon with 'Strength' Hatchet Hands to take away most of Baal's life and the merc (resurrected a substantial number of times) did the rest. Three golds in the drop: Gravenspine, eth. Ripsaw and a Djinn Slayer.


[Highlight]Conqueror Erica the Assassin and Razan the Might guard, level 74, NM cow level next[/Highlight]


Can someone please roll Erica's five skills for Hell? Her forever skills are Dragon Talon, Fire Blast and Shadow Warrior.

 

[jiansonz]

Nightmare Cow level done, all 186 of Erica's 30k+ gold items sold, 16 million in her ATMA bank account.

She eagerly awaits her Hell skill roll.

 

[pharphis]

Nightmare Cow level done, all 186 of Erica's 30k+ items sold, 16 million in her ATMA bank account.

She eagerly awaits her Hell skill roll.

I may mess this up but I'll roll several skills just in case
In the order that I rolled them:

Spoiler

blades of ice
mind blast
fire blast ---> fade
cobra strike
death sentry

Wow @ first 3 for HC full clears. I think you only get the first 3 but you know better than me.

 

[jiansonz]

@pharphis: Thanks for the roll. I do get 5 skills since I have not locked any of my earlier skills as a forever skill.

Good utility skills on that roll, with two tools to deal with resurrectors (I had saved an amulet with Grim Ward charges that won't be needed now). Not so good skills for damage (well, before I have a corpse, at least) so I guess I'll keep Razan around for a while longer. Skill roll was not good for Erica herself to use a polearm (I had hoped for Tiger Strike!) so I'll continue with my claw/shield setup. At least Dragon Talon will be good for the act boss fights. And I can pump Fire Blast a bit for extra DS explosions.

Could someone roll me up a Necromancer?

I can use any mercenary I want to, if I read everything correctly. And I'd like the weapons to be totally random, not necessarily wands. (correct me if I have misread the rules) It'll be a baptism of fire into Hardcore for me...

OK, Ailelya, here is your Necromancer:

Forever skills:
Summon Resist
Poison Explosion
Weaken

Normal skills:
Iron Maiden
Bone Spirit
Amplify Damage
Golem Mastery
Life Tap

I notice that there are two useless skills in this setup (summon boosters with no summon skill). I can not understand from the rules if I am to reroll them, or how I should do that. I hope Vang or someone else in-the-know pops in and tells us.

Armor items:
Heavy body armor
Great Helm
Bone Shield
Chain Gloves
Sash
Greaves
Gargoyle Head

Weapons:
(The random number gods hath decided that thou shalt use scepters x2 and javelins x1)
Grand Scepter
War Scepter
Pilum

(quite a bummer with the javelins, as it severely limits the damage output of an Act II merc. Maybe go for a merc with a big sword or bow instead, since you have Amp?)

Any rerolls?

 

[jiansonz]

Thank you!

Think you do re-roll useless skills.

Yeah, but that case is somewhat different from yours. If you roll a summon skill among the 5 skills for a difficulty, Summon Resist is not useless. So I am not sure if I should reroll Summon Resist, or some of the Normal skills. Which one takes priority, and how should it be done? Maybe the forever skills are set in stone if they are potentially useful. Unless you want to reroll it. Then again, I presume rerolling Weaken is also something you might want to do...

Reroll Pilum and I might reroll a forever skill once I find out what Summon Resist turns into.

I presume you want a reroll among main weapon classes, not just among the javelins, right?


Note that you can also reroll an armor type, in addition to the other two rerolls.

 

[jiansonz]

Alright, I'll reroll Weaken first.
Then, since I rolled a skill in the summon tree, if needed, I will reroll Golem Mastery until I get something in that tree that makes sense.



Updated Necromancer:

Forever skills:
Summon Resist
Poison Explosion
Weaken -> Raise Skeleton

Normal skills:
Iron Maiden
Bone Spirit
Amplify Damage
Golem Mastery -> Revive
Life Tap

Armor items:
Heavy body armor -> Medium body armor
Great Helm
Bone Shield
Chain Gloves
Sash
Greaves
Gargoyle Head

Weapons:
Grand Scepter
War Scepter
Pilum -> Axe

 

[Kestegs]

If you die you can ask for a new random roll.

Good luck!

 

[jiansonz]

Erica the Assassin has looked through her stash of equipment and decided her gear, stats and skills for Hell difficulty.

In short, she has maxed Shadow Warrior, Fade and Death Sentry, plus a couple of levels in Fire Blast to get DS to fire 7 times. Just one point in Mind Blast so far (more points do not increase the conversion time) and she is gradually building up Dragon Talon.

PI monsters may turn into a major issue. The lightning damage of unsynergized DS is only 1-300-ish. Fire Blast wasn't impressive in late NM even with one synergy maxed (it was WoI there, will be DS here) but I will probably pump it before Dragon Talon as I level up in Hell anyway. Merc does tiny poison damage which helps, but maybe I should have a big elemental damage weapon ready for him?

Merc weapon is still the ethereal Insight Battle Scythe. I am one rune (Fal, Lum, Ko or Io) away from being able to make Obedience, so I am surely going to look for a Thresher in early Hell. His other two pieces of gear is the fantastic Tal's Horadric Crest and a Stealth Full Plate (mostly for the FHR and FRW). Hmm, Stealth Full Plate sure sounds like an impossible combo...

Treachery would have been nice for either of us, but I have no Lem rune.

My own gear is adapted so I'll have maxed resists with Fade and also quite a bit of life. String of Ears combines nicely with Fade to give me 36% PDR. Coral Full Plate of the Whale and a Lore Death Mask are other pieces. Still using Strength Hatchet Hands and Rhyme Heater. Nothing on the weapon switch yet. Javelin of Vileness is always a possibility, and I may shop/gamble for a Buckler/Defender with Terror charges. Boots are Crimson of Transportation. Gloves and both rings are still my MF stuff and I top it off with an Amulet of Teleportation.

I pumped DEX so I'll have 50% blocking, enough STR to wear my armor even without help from anything but charms and the rest in VIT. A bit over 1100 life IIRC.

This might get interesting.

 

[pharphis]

Looks like you're set up pretty safely

 

[jiansonz]

Looks like you're set up pretty safely

Yep. The skill roll sort of pushed me in that direction, plus I prefer to play it safe.

The first act of Hell was almost a breeze. Razan's life steal (Tal's mask) has made him a much more low-maintenance companion than when he had full MF gear in Nightmare. Erica's MF is still not too shabby: +107% (28 Nagelring, 25 each on gloves, ring and Rhyme shield, 4 on small charm) and it's +130% for Razan's kills because of 23 more on Insight.

The issue with PI monsters has not been as bad as I have feared. A 5-set of Death Sentries whittles down most of them in reasonable time, especially if the merc keeps them poisoned. Zombies and wendigos usually turn PI if they spawn with Stone Skin. This was the case with Woody and his even nastier relative. There was also a Stone Skin Hungry Dead boss in one of the earlier areas. Those have native lightning immunty, so it was only the merc's poison, the fire damage of corpse explosions and my measly Fire Blasts that could damage him. Took a very long time to kill.

I thought I was being clever when I had rerolled this thing which I planned to use on the weapon switch, for even more crowd control in some situations. Then I read the rules carefully one last time and hidden within a 'spoiler' section, I saw that using active staffmodded skills (or active oskills for that matter) is not allowed! The only way I am allowed to use CoS is from charges (e.g. on a Nadir mask).
Darn, a Hel rune and (at least for now) seven stat points (=21 max life) wasted...

Erica has had two remarkable rune finds in this act; two runes even higher than the Gul she found in Nightmare. An Ohm (grailer!) dropped in Den of Evil and I found a Vex in Tower Cellars. Amazing, but not as useful as Fal, Pul, Lem or Um would have been...
The coolest runeword I can make with my current runes is Death. If I can get hold of a 5s ethereal Colossus Sword/-Blade, I will definitely make it and switch to a barb merc. Obedience is still my endgame goal if I keep Razan. Need a base of my weapon types (Thresher or Giant Thresher) for that, and one more of the mid runes. Fal or Ko is definitely enough. It's unclear if another Lum or even Io is sufficient, I'll have to check that up if one drops.

Pretty tough welcome on Catacombs 4. Blessed Aim is usually not a big deal, but if it combines with Cursed and Extra Strong so every damn minion hits like a truck and hits every time, it's bad news. Mind Blast conversion was key here, both so the boss stopped hitting Razan and so Razan focused on the boss rather than the minion (which he did before I converted it).

Players 1 for the Andariel fight, and Erica took over the tanking duty, for once. I needed several breaks for potion refills and a couple of merc resurrections. Burned 10 or so full purples but the Jail areas and Catacombs had left me with a bigger surplus than that so it was no big deal. Very crappy drop. Other than the guaranteed gems, she dropped only two items (so several no-drops!): rare Demon Head and rare Hyperion Spear.


[Highlight]Conqueror Erica the Assassin and Razan the Might guard, level 79, Hell Act II Sewers next[/Highlight]