Skill-less tournament (3rd edition)

Okay well.. that wasn't expected..

Found a chipped skull in Blood Moor,

12% FHR GC in Cold Plains

3os Short Bow (+1 Max Dmg) in Cold Plains

Nocty was lvl 9, and things were looking good at the start.

Died to a pack of Archers in Cave Lvl 1, ViA Holy Freeze Unique. Thought I got away from them but they snuck up on me and I couldn't drop a TP in time ._.

I already took the liberty of re-rolling, this time it was a tie between Amazon (#1), and Druid (#4). Druid won, and while earlier I had hoped for a Druid roll, now I am not so enthusiastic about it, I doubt he'll last long.

Roland, the level 1 Druid has entered the fray!
 
Woop woop! First deeds of the tournament!

I plan to make some good progress this weekend. During the week is harder, so Valdimir is sitting comfy in the outer cloister right now
 
Aww, sorry about the Deeds, better luck with Roland!

Act 3 has been about as maddening as usual. If I hear one more flayer shoot a dart, I think I'll snap and kill them all.
...
oh wait, I already did. mwahahaha

Dim Vision continues to be the best thing ever. But I know I'll want to have more options later, so I shopped this:
-----
Wailing Bone Wand of Confusion
Bone Wand
One Hand Damage: 3 - 7
Durability: 15 of 15
Required Level: 24
Fingerprint: 0x5870728c
Item Level: 28
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to Decrepify (Necromancer Only)
+1 to Attract (Necromancer Only)
+1 to Life Tap (Necromancer Only)
Hit Causes Monster to Flee 100%
Level 1 Confuse (67/67 Charges)
-----
took forever to shop, but it will be so handy. Thanks, Ormus!

As for stats, I think I'll go for 100/100 str/dex with the rest in vit until something nice drops. I have no idea what kind of weapon that will be.

Nothing particularly amazing dropped in Kurast, but I collected plenty of gold and flawed gems.

Yredelemnul and Zanarhi, flayer exterminators extraordinaire, lvl 31, Upper Kurast
temples are done, so sewers + trav next!
 
@xXxGrimmxXx: Sorry to hear about the deeds. It is good that it happened early and the next character will surely get further.

Adriana and Aliza took on Andariel. Until that time, nothing special to report except for the annoying devilkin. Adriana gave up and killed the shamans herself as it was very difficult to convince Aliza to do anything.

Andariel, herself, rushed to pick on Aliza but Adriana stepped in and began scratching away with ctc Amp Dmg. She gave up for this fight to gold find equipment and took on more blocking (gambled bone shield) and a bit more MF on the amulet (4% more). She also possessed a Grand Charm with some fire dmg. All in all, the fight was easy although potion intensive. Still no trips to town were required and Aliza somehow managed to deliver the last hit. The drop was all rares (among which a failed double axe, a failed wolf head and a rare wrist blade), a diamond and an El, so Steel is now complete, missing only the weapon itself.

No other interesting finds, but once Adriana reached Lut Gholein she sold all her >5k value finds and now she has the stash and pockets full of gold :cool:. Almost lvl 21 now and she will take on gambling again when she passes that mark.
 
Yredelemnul is lvl 32. Mephisto is dead.

The sewers were full of Horadric Ancients, so we had to go to town a lot to cure Zanarhi's poison.
tried to gamble better gloves and belt, not much success

Had a close call in one of the temples on the Kurast Causeway. I got surrounded by a pack of viper magi, who were charging and stunning me against the wall. Fortunately, the town portal spawned right on my feet and I was able to escape. I have my iron maiden wand on switch, so my next plan would have been to tank them with that until they died from reflected damage. Hey, it's what purples are for.

Zanarhi died once to Mephisto's poison. I went to town, ressed him and gave him antidote pots. Mephisto still preferred to attack him instead of the clay golem (spacing), so I was on potion duty.

Mephisto himself didn't drop anything useful to me, but one of the council members on Durance 3 dropped a Gull. I want to use it, but that means I need to find a decent necro head. Does normalizing cracked/damaged/low quality heads reset the staffmods?

Yredelemnul, proud patron of Zanarhi, slayer of Mephisto, lvl 32, Pandemonium Fortress


Edit: Yes, normalizing heads (El + chippy + head) does reset staffmods, and there's a small chance for lvl 6 skills (CE!). So far I haven't gotten a good roll, but I will keep saving low quality heads to eventually maybe get a Amp, CE, dim vision shield to Larzuk for Rhyme.
 
Last edited:
Triple post of doom, but hey, I am making progress and having fun.

The best head I've found is my shield now:
-----
Unraveller Head of Light
Unraveller Head
Defense: 8
Chance to Block: 0
Durability: 14 of 20
Required Level: 12
Required Strength: 18
Fingerprint: 0x11c31b5f
Item Level: 17
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+15 to Attack Rating
Adds 2 - 7 Poison Damage Over 3 Secs (75 Frames)
+1 to Dim Vision (Necromancer Only)
+2 to Amplify Damage (Necromancer Only)
+1 to Light Radius
-----
With Gull I have 263 mf, 324 on merc kill. Nice.
/p8 outer steppes was cleared with caution. Dim Vision stopped Zanarhi from being toasted by demons.
I've never had a necromancer at this stage without CE. It's... weird.
Izual showed up late, so all of plains of despair was done on /p1
Izual was weak, he squandered his demonic power (but still took a long time for Zanarhi to kill, even amped)
I picked up a superior halberd with 5% ED, but it is only lvl 24, not high enough to get 4 sockets. Oh well.

Yredelemnul, treasure finder, lvl 33, City of the Damned
 
Last edited:
Aww, sorry about the Deeds, better luck with Roland!

Act 3 has been about as maddening as usual. If I hear one more flayer shoot a dart, I think I'll snap and kill them all.
...
oh wait, I already did. mwahahaha

Dim Vision continues to be the best thing ever. But I know I'll want to have more options later, so I shopped this:
-----
Wailing Bone Wand of Confusion
Bone Wand
One Hand Damage: 3 - 7
Durability: 15 of 15
Required Level: 24
Fingerprint: 0x5870728c
Item Level: 28
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to Decrepify (Necromancer Only)
+1 to Attract (Necromancer Only)
+1 to Life Tap (Necromancer Only)
Hit Causes Monster to Flee 100%
Level 1 Confuse (67/67 Charges)
-----
took forever to shop, but it will be so handy. Thanks, Ormus!

As for stats, I think I'll go for 100/100 str/dex with the rest in vit until something nice drops. I have no idea what kind of weapon that will be.

Nothing particularly amazing dropped in Kurast, but I collected plenty of gold and flawed gems.

Yredelemnul and Zanarhi, flayer exterminators extraordinaire, lvl 31, Upper Kurast
temples are done, so sewers + trav next!

Sweet wand for sure! I've come to really enjoy Dim Vision myself with my Lord of Mages theme build.
 
Great job everyone with your current progress, it's been an enjoyable read and sucked me right in to the fray.

Count me and Lucious the randomly rolled Paladin in to this adventure. Thank you RNG for not giving me another Druid this go around. I'm jealous of SV playing out a Necro, but I do like the idea of randomness. I will more than likely be choosing a cold arrow Rouge.
 
You don't like the 5/6 odds of 2 sockets, and/or think Tal+Amn+Pruby is more valuable than a socket reward??

Hmm... we'll see. It wouldn't be too bad with just 1 socket, I'd stick a pdiamond in it, probably.
I know the socket reward is more valuable. At this point I'm just thinking about my options.

Edit: Actually, thanks for pointing that out for me. I was too focused on Rhyme by default. You're right that the socket reward should probably be used elsewhere.
 
@Southpaw8668 - welcome and good luck with your paladin!

Diablo is dead, Zanarhi is dead, Gumby is dead, Yredelemnul is not dead yet. They will never get all the mud out of the Chaos Sanctuary carpet/tile/floor.

Zanarhi smashed all the evil force windows in the City of the Damned cathedral. Who knew he was such a vandal?
Picked up an ilvl 27 poleaxe - probably going to wait for a better base for Insight, if that's what I do.

Halfway through the River of Flame, after I ran away to separate some spawners, I was hit with the bug where monsters completely ignore my merc. I set it back to /p1 and cast Dim Vision a lot to keep myself from getting toasted. I'm mad that I missed out on xp and drops, but glad to be alive.
Hellforge was Ort and pdiamond, and I found a Sol on the way there.

I shopped this:
-----
Dragon's Bone Wand
Bone Wand
One Hand Damage: 3 - 7
Durability: 15 of 15
Required Level: 24
Fingerprint: 0xe781e25d
Item Level: 36
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Iron Golem (Necromancer Only)
+1 to Corpse Explosion (Necromancer Only)
+1 to Dim Vision (Necromancer Only)
+40 to Mana
-----
I have no experience with Iron Golem, especially not 1 unsynergized point. If it ends up having enough health, it could be a late game source of crushing blow (Strength).

/p1 CS was not too bad. Those playing earlier than 1.13, I salute you in advance.
I was careful to put up a tp before hitting the Infector's seal. That was a good idea; I didn't get trapped and got to Decrepify them.
I'm going to need a better way to kill bosses soon. Normally some skills would be kicking in about now. But not today.

Yredelemnul, lvl 34, Harrogath
 
Made it to the Outer Cloister with little trouble, just slow going, since I am trying to clear everything and take full advantage of chests and monster drops.

Klaudia and Lucious make a pretty good team. Haven't even been able to shop for a +skills Scepter, as it seems gold drops have been pretty small. I did find some rings with decent 67% collective GF now, so that should change it up entering the depths of the Catacombs.

Rare dagger w/ fire damage and paladin shield w/ resist all on primary and rare javelin with some poison damage and another paladin shield w/ resist all on switch in case I run into a tough pack with LE.

Lucious, lvl 12, Outer Cloister
 
Incompetentus is level 26 (Act II, Arcane Sanctuary WP) and counting.

Reason I'm posting is that I can't seem to shop a scepter with +X to Smite. Is there a logical reason for that? It should be a Tier 1 skill, so it should spawn on the scepters that Normal Akara and Drognan sell, no? I've never played an untwinked Paladin before, so it may be a noob question.
 
Reason I'm posting is that I can't seem to shop a scepter with +X to Smite. Is there a logical reason for that?

Yes, Smite and Holy Shield do not spawn as staffmods in later game versions. It's the same with all Barb combat skills except Leap.
(they can spawn - something along the lines of the game trying 6 or so times to get a legal staffmod, and then goes "what the f*ck" and picks the next roll no matter what it is - so it's in the order of a million times more rare than the legal staffmods...)



Helena the skilless Assassin completed her current 'Steel' Flail when an El dropped in Stony Tomb. It's been very slow going anyway, because I want my merc to get the kills for more MF. And she was using her starter socketed Long Bow all the way up to the Palace. There I found a rare Long Bow with some +ED, fire damage and bonus vs undead that was slightly better. I found my second Ith rune in the Arcane Sanctuary, and had Meghan switch to an 'IthIth' Composite Bow with the last socket still open.

Nice find in the Claw Viper Temple:
Helena01shrine_zps65f37a83.jpg


Very crappy charm finds so far. I have only kept a 7% fire resist small charm.

I wimped out and took Duriel on /players 3. Should have gone with /p5 because he only dropped 5 items, and the fight was very easy:
Helena02Duriel_zps3906a3b9.jpg

By the time I took the screenie, I have used 1 (one!) greater healer.
I had 302 life, 85% cold resist, 51% blocking and made sure to keep Meghan outside the HF radius. No problem - didn't need any purples at all.


[Highlight]Helena the Assassin and Meghan the Cold archer, level 28, Spider Forest next[/Highlight]
 
Last edited:
Back
Top