Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

[smilts]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

Its possible and if so I apologize, and will try and correct my actions. My play style and lack of HC confidence may have been leaving other players getting my characters gimped. If that's the case it hasn't been on purpose. Unless restarting I don't play untwinked, and have never had any luck at all in HC.

 

[nualum]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

Excellent! I was dreadfully afraid of seeing Dooku again in a later act.

I didn't forward him along to Skunk because I was presuming that if you were in act 1, and thought for whatever reason that you had to allocate points to a core skill (I think we were already into act 1 play before some of the prerequisite discussion was through) rather than saving them for later use (clearly the best strategy), then extra points in curses and clay golem were the only things you could do within core skills. Knowing that happened in act two though, once all the rules were well established and discussed, and it was abundantly clear that saving points for later players was the way to go... ugh.

Having said that, decrepify + level 15 gumby made diablo attack about once every 15 seconds. Amusing (though obviously not a viable long-term strategy for the hordes of Hell)

 

[Thomh]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

Hmm I didnt feel I found or left Vador neglected, sorry if ya'll did. Im not a great HC player and I dont power lvl my characters early in the game like so many others. I also had a lot of fun playing with psn dagger through act3 using corpse explosion to tidy up. I generally get into act5 at around 32 to 35 and lvl from there.

Wow, looking at my previous post regarding this, I came off like an angry douche. That wasn`t my intention; when looking back, I don`t think there`s much else you could have done to make Vader better, other than some minor tweaks. It`s just that I hate poison dagger in act4 as it starts to kill very slow, and poison nova is very weak at low levels as well. Diablo was a terrifying enemy to say the least. Please forgive me

Spoiler

And forgive me for ruining your ears with that song

That being said, I like that you chose poison dagger as it feels Vaderesque I`m very disappointed in myself for mis-managing my time so I couldn`t do what I planned to do with the character. Like finding a good necro head and shop a decent wand for some Tir runes. I was worried that I handed over a terrible character to Kestegs because not much changed for Vader under my supervision, but luckily Kestegs managed to get by the first levels before Poison Nova starts to work well

 

[skunkbelly]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

I like the idea of WoRG picking his act 3 Power Skill first, and then having Nualum pick the act 4 skill with WoRG's choice in mind. I think that you two and Quickdeath can work that out between the three of you, either in PM or email, so just let us all know when it's settled.

 

[Ohomemgrande1]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

That story made me laugh.

In the old days, couldn't you make a really strong Clay Golem and use Iron Maiden to kill things with? I mean you still can and it works well for Normal Diablo.

Maybe that was blood golem. I can't remember.

 

[skunkbelly]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

That story made me laugh.

In the old days, couldn't you make a really strong Clay Golem and use Iron Maiden to kill things with? I mean you still can and it works well for Normal Diablo.

Maybe that was blood golem. I can't remember.

I suppose, if you want to take two hours to clear the Den of Evil, that it might work in early Nightmare. But there's a time limit in this tournament... we only have two weeks per act! :grin:

OK, so now that my host duties are complete, I can talk characters.

I had Ackbar in act 3, and selected Maul as his first Power Skill, thereby committing him to be a Bear. Hopefully his next players continued in that general direction. He was fine to play, and with good skill selections going forward, ought to do well.

In Act 4, I had Chewbacca. He had already been given Concentrate as his first Power Skill, which is ideal for barbs in this tournament since they have BO as a Core Skill. I then added Battle Command as his next power skill... like Brak, I hesitated a bit over this decision, but in the end it seemed smart. BO already synergizes Concentrate, so the attack skill was all set to be strong. Battle Command would increase the length of BO, and +1 to all skills never hurts, especially untwinked. He should be a strong character.

Now, in Act 5, I have another barb, Farr. He came to me with Battle Command selected as a Power Skill (no problem there), but Spear Mastery was selected first, and pumped up with 10 points. Alas. Spears are pretty slow, and there are precious few runewords that are useful in them at low levels (really, most of the runewords that work with spears are going to be unattainable in this kind of tournament). So unless I find a good spear in act 5 (or one worth socketing or personalizing), poor Farr is going to be stuck with a crummy weapon for a very, very long time. If swords or maces had been selected instead, he would have had a better chance.

Anyway, I selected Whirlwind as his third and final Power Skill. Partly because of the spear focus (they're at least long, which helps with Whirlwind), and partly because points had been put into all the prerequisites for Whirlwind, and I hated to see them wasted. Right now, my focus is on trying to get him enough mana gear to make it viable... he now has a caster helm (which came out pretty good, considering all things). And yes, he'll be happy to personalize the Hand of Broc gloves unless he finds or crafts something better in the meantime. I intend to do some heavy gambling, just in case. Assuming I can find him (or craft him) some decent equipment, he ought to be OK.

 

[jiansonz]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

I do not think a beefy Clay Golem is a bad investment, or against the spirit of the tourney*. Not with the late game in mind. Necros have tons of one-point wonders and are some of the best merc helpers. You have a merc, Amplify Damage, a pretty much unkillable tank, and the option to shop staffmodded wands with useful skills.

With any decent merc weapon (be that an IthIthIth Composite Bow, a Malice Poleaxe or a King´s Grace Flamberge), getting past Act V should be easy, and you gain about 14 skill points there.



Within the tourney rules, and allowing staffmod skills to be used even past Normal, I say that it´s nearly impossible to make a Necromancer not viable for Hell. Well, unless you gimp the stats investment and the gear on purpose.



Pumping Amp like crazy would have been closer to borderline...and a level 14 Terror would clearly not be in the spirit of the tourney.



(* I´ve pumped Clay Golem and Golem Mastery to 5-10 levels each in Normal on more than one occasion.)

 

[WoRG1]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

OK, I have PM'd my power skill choice to Quickdeath and Nualum. I apologize to skunkbelly and especially Nualum and Quickdeath for not saying something earlier and getting this fixed before, but:
1) part of whats really cool about this tourney is the chance to play builds you'd never try...I've never put more than a point or two in Clay Golem, maybe they knew something I didn't.
2) I didn't wanna come off as whiney.
3) Once I started with him, it became a personal challenge.

I will say this: at slvl18(+2 CG wand) with slvl 6 GM (1 hard point, +2 wand, +3 head), Gumby was a STOUT tank...he only died TWICE the whole act, once when he was surrounded by Szzark's pack (that poison is NASTY) and once to /p8 Mephisto...he just couldn't even kill mosquitos. BTW, I played all of act3 at /p8, so I wouldn't say Dooku was hopeless, just a real slow grind...I put four levels on him (28-32) and banked all skill points because I knew that for him to have any chance, his power skills would have to mesh perfectly...in retrospect, I definitely should have PM'd skunkbelly about him, but short of that, I really believe I did right by Dooku (I also improved his gear substantially, IMO)

WoRG

PS: Skunkbelly, you have email

 

[skunkbelly]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

@skunkbelly: Do you really think Act V mercs are awful, or was that comment tongue-in-cheek? The barb merc my Necromancer in the Randomly Challenged II tourney had was one of the strongest merc I´ve ever used. I could probably have full cleared Hell difficulty just by leading him around, using nothing else but TP scrolls and potions...

The times I've used them, I've found their aggression to be their downfall... they seem to rush in and get smushed rather quickly. But perhaps with better gear (and at a higher level) they would do better.

 

[nualum]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

Act 4 power has been emailed to Quickdeath. I'll echo most of Worg's sentiments, but add my own apology for playing hot potato with him rather than spending a bit more time to give him whatever boost might have been possible before act 5. Ironically, I felt really good about Beru after act three, and Dooku's the one still standing...

 

[skunkbelly]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

But first I have to check.....Is razortail allowed? It kinda gives access to a power (Pierce) without having it as a skill or ctc skill or anything, so it could be questionable.

Nothing questionable about it. All items that give skill bonuses are permitted clearly in the rules. Good luck!

 

[skunkbelly]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

jiansonz, your point is well taken (as usual!). But I still think it was a pretty poor choice to put so many points into the skill so early in the game... if tavaritz had put only 4 or 5 points into clay golem, I'd shrug and let it go. But to my thinking, a level 16 clay golem in act 2 normal is bad form.

For what it's worth, I've had some other questions about whether certain characters were viable or not, and my response in every other case has been "play on." So rest assured that this decision wasn't made lightly.

 

[tavaritz]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

With this rule:

"Necromancer Core Skills: All Curses, all Golems, Bone Armor"

I decided to make a golemancer out of Dooku. Then all you need as your power skills are Golem Mastery and Summon Resist. You can even get CE if you want.

Dooku was easy to play in act 2 with /p7. I'd like to get him back and show you how he is quite Hell viable character as I've done a golemancer who beat Hell.

I also put one point in every curse so that what ever need there were you had the curse to handle it and all +skills would work with them.

It's not my fault if people cannot play a golemancer. I don't know how to play a martial arts assasin, but I wouldn't have complained if I got one.

 

[WoRG1]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

LOL @ tavaritz:

1) I didn't complain, but I should have...
2) I played Dooku thru act3 with exactly the skill set you gave him, so...as a (clay) golemancer.
3) I did so on /p8...:tongue:

I've played Golemancers before, though not in a long time...but Iron Golem works better (tho 1 point IG is sufficient, unless you're trying to max his built in Thorns...not the best strategy). If you wanna dump points into a Golem, Fire Golem is best IMO, as it synergizes damage for other golems...Gumby synergizes AR, and I can't recall my Golems missing much. I agree that Summon Resist would probably have prevented the 2 times Gumby did die in Act 3.

WoRG

 

[smilts]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

I cant see anyway that putting that many points into Clay Golem this early in a limited gear limited skill tourney, could be considered sound strategy. Besides everything is easy to play in act2 normal.

 

[jiansonz]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

but Iron Golem works better (tho 1 point IG is sufficient, unless you're trying to max his built in Thorns...not the best strategy)

Maybe it´s not the best strategy if you have good items to make the golems from, but it´s the strategy that has worked best for me when I have been trying to make progress as a golem-/returnomancer. Clay/Fire Golem + high level Iron Maiden works in a pinch, but then you can´t Amp the returned damage.

A Thorns merc works even better, though.

 

[soulmanz]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

OK, now skunky has talked about Farr I can too!

Skunk - I was the one that chose spear mastery, and I knew that would be a questionable decision. My reasoning was several fold -

1: Spears are cool, and no one uses them. Admit it, a barb with a lance is badass.
2: One of the Farrs (the jedi one ... Jastus?) uses a double ended lightsabre with high skill (wounded Vader with it) so mastery was just right
3: I figured spears wouldnt be too hard to find ... because of the safety craft. Admitedly it doesnt come with the 60%ED of the other crafts, so there is a bit more risk, but I was thinking he could run with a tasty elite glaive and shield for safety, and a nasty elite pike for dominance in end game. He would have good dex for blocking as an added bonus.
Trust me, I ran the potential numbers through a bunch of speed and damage calcs to be sure. Didnt take the decision lightly.
4: my goal was exactly where he was taken - awesome classic WW lance barb! The length and massive sockets of big spears mean even if a good craft or runeword is unavailable a mix of rare jewels and runes should work ok
5: I agree the 10 points as a bit much, considering he didnt even have a good spear, but I really wanted to emphasise the idea that he would be using spears end game. I think every time I sent him on he had a bunch of skill points and stat points unspent (I had not spent any skill or stat points at all in Act 1 I think?)

I know y'all might not agree ... but it was the only way I could tie the character into the game, and he certainly is at least passably viable. BO + BC should have him good to go.

And you get to play a far more interesting character than an ax WWer!

As mentioned I had him twice. Look forward to seeing him down the track, hopefully all the way at the end so I dont feel like he ruined someone's tournie!

 

[skunkbelly]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

WoRG and smilts and jiansonz, to varying degrees (and especially smilts), have already said basically what I was going to say in response to tavaritz, so thank you, gentlemen, for sparing me the trouble.

Game on, all.

 

[skunkbelly]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

@ soulmanz: no worries... I just hope he'll find a decent weapon sooner, rather than later. You didn't do anything inappropriate, you just didn't do what I would have done :grin: That's fair. And I admire the attention to roleplaying! This thread needs more on-topic quotes and puns, I think.

 

[Hoop76]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

It was nice to get Offee back for act 5. She was the one i played act 1 in so i didn't really have a clue what direction she would be going it. Found out she was a trapsin. All 3 power skills are in the traps section. Should be ok, she has Lightning, fire, and damage from CE.

My anya quest item actually helped it was a rare assassin weapon with +1 to Assasin skills.

My personalize quest ended up being bloodfist.

And my socket quest ended up being a rare circlet that after socketing has
66% Light resist, and 39% Fire resist, with some other mods. It was the best one i gambled, and i thought resists can always help later on.