Skill-less tournament (3rd edition)

Skilllass and Durga have full cleared their way on p3 to the Canyon of the Magi waypoint. There are three gear setups that Skilllass switches between

1) The base walking around gear using Black and Rhyme and normal attack.

2) A (level 9) Frozen Orb setup used in areas where there are PI regular monsters (Ghosts in the Arcane Sanctuary) or as a quick change in town against PI uniques.

3) A Glacial Spike casting set up in areas where there are monsters which raise killed foes (Mummies for example).

This versatility, the ability to teleport, and generally careful play have made Act 2 so far go very smoothly; I have made a tidy profit in both gold and full rejuvs. Coldworm's lair was of particular note as there was also two other Maggot uniques inside, so the chamber was teeming with maggots and their spawn. I ended up using a bunch of Corpse Explosion charges from Black (about 1 million gold worth) because using single target attacks would have taken forever. Fangskin was fought in the little alley in the bottom left of the room:

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This position is especially nice since the merc can fight one snake at a time and no snake can get at the character. Fangskin's pack was extraordinarily accommodating as one of the snakes dropped this:

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which became, after a quick visit to Nightmare Larzuk:

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A good roll too! Note you can also see that the stash is full of the aforementioned gear changes.

Skilllass now sits on the brink of level 83, about 1 million XP away. I plan on clearing all the false tombs before taking on Duriel.
 
Table post due to important progress :) :

Code:
Alive characters:
Forum Name      Class       Char Name    LVL   ACT     WP             Version
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
jiansonz         Assassin   Helena        85   A5(H)   Frigid Highlands  1.13
Sput             Sorc       Skilllass     82   A2(H)   Canyon
Dazliare        *Barb       Vladimir      72   A5(N)   Halls of Pain
Dezrok           Necro      Unlikely      70   A5(N)   Crystalline Psg   1.13d
japanzaman       Barb       Babs          57?  A3(N)   Travincal         1.13
felixbavaria     Amazon     Adynate       50   A1(N)   Black Marsh       1.13d
Naturallog       Necro      Spineless     30   A3      Spider Forest     1.13d
helvete          Barb       Slow          22   A2      Halls of the Dead 1.13
michajo2k       *Paladin    Meridian      20   A2      Lut Gholein        
Jocular         *Paladin    Raft          16   A1      The Barracks
BulletJon       *Druid      Denzi          8   A1      Cold Plains       1.13
imakeigloospat   Druid      Glenn          1   A1      Rogue Enc         1.13d
xXxGrimmxXx      Amazon     WaffleStrike   1   A1      Rogue Enc         1.13d
Atroz           *Assassin   ?              1   A1      Rogue Enc
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dead ones:
Forum Name      Class       Char Name    LVL   ACT     Place of Deeds  Version
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SunsetVista      Necro      Yredelemnul   81   A3(H)   Travincal        1.13
HanShotFirst  ***Sorc       Two           86   A3(H)   Flayer Jungle        
felixbavaria    *Paladin    Incompetentus 72   A5(N)   WSK 1            1.13d
epaminondas     *Assassin   Adriana       56   A2(N)   Palace Lvl 2     1.11
illya_           Barb       Mentor        35   A4      Diablo           1.13c
illya_          *Assassin   Maxwell       22   A2      Rocky Waste      1.13c
Southpaw8668    *Paladin    Lucious      >19   A2      Duriel           1.13
xXxGrimmxXx    **Druid      Roland      >=17   A1      Monastery        1.13d
Southpaw8668     Necro      Goulash       14   A1      retired          1.13
xXxGrimmxXx    **Assassin   Noctyria       9   A1      Cave Lvl 1       1.13d
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Notes:
*  = this class has been randomly chosen
** = this class has been somewhat randomly chosen
*** = this character needed a random decision that it would not be random :)

Edit: Updated Dazliare accordingly with the next post. To have a complete view of our current leaders :).
 
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Skilllass and Durga have cleared all the False Tombs on p3. The tactics were as I mentioned in my last post with the exception that there were several PI/CI bosses, but Static Field and Venom plus Enchant on the merc was enough to take each of them down. Here's a couple of screenies of these sorts of encounters

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Patience and persistence paid off when in the second to last of the tombs the sparkly chest dropped this.

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I now no longer have a switch helm in the stash!

Both Skilllass and Durga now are at level 83 and are getting ready to clear the canyon itself and then Druriel's tomb next.
 
Unique Shako, nice find! Helena certainly wouldn't mind one of those...



A couple of more areas defeated. Nothing too dangerous, although a careful approach and lots of CoS was needed in Abaddon because of those tough cold/poison Horror Archers. No boss archer there, and generally very few bosses in Abaddon and Pit of Acheron. Pretty wimpy monster draws in the above-ground areas, with imps galore, boars, skeleton mages and fire archer women. Probably something else I've forgotten - it was a couple of days ago.

The AP waypoint is pretty far from the exit hole by Thresh, but both defense lines I need to cross have a section to the right that is open (no door or barrier). I will still bring my teleporting circlet for the next session. The ice caves is where it can really start to get ugly in this act.

Recent finds: Swordguard unique Executioner Sword (grailer).


[Highlight]Conqueror Helena the Assassin and Meghan the Cold sister, level 85, Hell Crystalline Passage next[/Highlight]
 
Skilllass and Durga have slain Duriel and have made their way to the Kurast Docks at level 84.

The Canyon of the Magi brought Crushers, Hell Cats, and Hell Slingers; pretty routine. A Mal rune did drop here, but I'll need some excellent rune luck to make any use of it in this tourney. I could hope for an Um and a Ber (LK!) along the way to make Beast, but this is a pipe dream.

The Tomb held Apparitions, Preserved Dead, and Steel Scarabs. A very nice draw, the only trouble was going back and forth from town to switch gear for the Apparitions. Speaking of that, the first unique in the tomb, a scarab named Devil Bender, dropped a magic orb with +2 Frozen Orb and +2 Cold Mastery. I had been on the lookout for such an orb for a while, and even though using it decreases the level of Frozen Orb by two as compared to the previous orb, the level 8 Cold Mastery more than makes up for the loss in damage. A grey Monarch also dropped in the tomb, but it had 2 sockets, booo!

Duriel himself posed no real trouble on p3. I put on couple of cold resist charms, drank some thawing potions, Static Fielded him down, then equipped the trusty Black, and tanked Duriel while Durga worked him over with Obedience. Duriel's drop had nothing exciting.

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On to Act 3!
 
For kicks and for massive style points, I suggest making the one and only runeword that can be made in orbs. :D

Actually I could see Venom having situational usefulness with its combination of ITD, PMH, and Poison Explosion charges for corpse disposal. I don't have any 3os orbs at the moment, but I will definitely be on the lookout as I have never made a Venom runeword before. Maybe I could even find one with useful skill mods.
 
Well, that was a long wait! But here's the promised update. I have to be brief, because my better half is probably right around the corner =)

After aquiring the cube, I made several attempts at cubing a decent weapon for myself, and several for the new merc. This is what we ended up with:

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As you can probably tell, merc did almost all the killing due to his supreme firepower and because I didn't want to forego his MF. By now, I need only one more flawed topaz to have 10 of them between me and my merc.

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And it payed off, kinda. Second piece of Hsaru's, now only missing the shield (which is unlikely to drop, as bucklers hardly drop after act 1).

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This is the second of two, I forgot to screenshot the first.

Grabbed the last WP and S/E. Will clear the remainder of act 2 during the weekend. Looking forward to 15k selling price, as I stashed a LOT of cubed grand scepters which were useless in damage but had high value staffmods.

Slow, lvl 26 nonrandom barbarian, Canyon of the Magi WP.
 
Vladimir has vanquished the ancients. This is the furthest I've ever gotten in a tournament, and I'm psyched about it!

Act V thus far hasn't been too bad. We had one NDE in the Halls of Vaught when an evil urn spawned the dreaded tomb vipers. After that pack, we cleared the rest of Halls of Vaught on P3, including the sinister Nihlathak. Aside from that, the entire act was taken on P8, with only one tricky boss. This boss took some doing to split up all the minions and take everything one on one:

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A key find (but no screenshot) was a Tarnhelm! I gave it to Haseen. and we've been rolling in gold ever since.

A few nice finds:

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The best find of the session. This made Haseen much more durable, and made all the ice enemies in the caves relatively trivial.

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Last interesting screenshot. These undead were stuck off the screen. So much for a full clear :(

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We used Earthshaker for awhile, which has been nice with prevent monster heal. A coldsteel eye dropped, which has lower overall damage, but attacks much faster, and the slows target 30% was amazing against the ancients. PMH is just gravy :)

Vladimir and Haseen, level 73 Demon Slayers, Nightmare Worldstone Keep and The Lord of Destruction next
 
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That's a lot of effort for 4 zombies.

Well, if full clear is the aim...

I'm now regretting not just grabbing a rogue merc :(

It is of course even better if you can get out there, in case something nice drops. Can be frustrating otherwise.

In Act III Sewers there is sometimes a little island with a dead body on it, and you can not teleport to this island. You can flip the body over with Telekinesis, but only pick up the drop with TK if it's gold or junk (unless you are playing an early version of D2 where TK could pick up everything).
 
Well, if full clear is the aim...



It is of course even better if you can get out there, in case something nice drops. Can be frustrating otherwise.

In Act III Sewers there is sometimes a little island with a dead body on it, and you can not teleport to this island. You can flip the body over with Telekinesis, but only pick up the drop with TK if it's gold or junk (unless you are playing an early version of D2 where TK could pick up everything).
<3 1.07
 
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