Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

[ancalagon the black]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

I did a few quick calculations, and max warmth is actually a pretty good strategy for a sorc in early normal with most skills restricted to only one point. It synergizes Inferno, Blaze, and Fire Wall, all of which are boosted substantially by a leaf staff. Fire Wall would have enough damage to kill /p1 normal Duriel in 14 seconds by itself, without using static and without stacking Fire Walls. Even Inferno would be doing about 260 damage per second.

If you cast static 5 times, then used Fire Wall (without static or stacking them after that), /p8 Duriel would take 23 seconds. Not bad for only putting one point in anything except warmth.

I was going to ask whether the goal of the tourney was to kill off other players or to get them to use things they'd never thought of before. If the goal is to get everyone as far as possible, I'd still oppose banning things from being power skills (except possibly psychic hammer and increased stamina). Inferno (especially w/ a leaf staff and synergized by warmth) would be very effective in the early game, and in the late game could still be used as a synergy for Fire Wall (even if not the most effective possible). I'm sure it's quite challenging, but I know impalazons are possible. Sanctuary is probably not the best choice of an aura to max, and the straight damage is probably not worth worrying about, but every level adds to its effective radius. At level 20, it does knockback on all undead within 16 yards, making it a very good crowd control skill for the undead.

I don't really like the idea of builds being totally secret. Part of the fun is reading other people's updates, and if you end up playing a really weird build from a class you don't normally play, chances are your updates will be more entertaining than usual.

 

[tavaritz]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

I won't be entering as the playing speed is beyond me. But here's some thoughts:

As there is no rule to max core skills i cannot understand the whining against Holy Shield. Think it as a boon that it's a core skill as that means no-one can assign it as a power skill.

I'm with AtB that the builds shouldn't be kept secret because like he wrote reading of the exploits is fun and as I'm not going to participate the only fun for me would be reading about the exploits of the SUTC heroes.

Does anybody have the respec tokens to spare? one possibility against screwed builds is that each participant gets one respec token to use as they see.

 

[purplelocust]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

I don't really like the idea of builds being totally secret. Part of the fun is reading other people's updates, and if you end up playing a really weird build from a class you don't normally play, chances are your updates will be more entertaining than usual.

The surprise upon getting a character is really quite a wonderful aspect of the tourney. For people curious about the characters from the outside of the tournament, in previous tourneys the characters were described after they had died or become Guardians. Some people wrote up notes at the time of playing the characters through various acts to be posted later (after death or Guardianship), so that gave some idea about what was going on.

It is a big commitment to play in this kind of tourney- it was frustrating in previous tourneys when a player either fell behind, or withdrew, or just seemed to fall out of email contact, as that meant that the character that the player had at that time essentially died after a number of players had already put a fair amount of play into the character.

 

[scrcrw]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

I'm definitely in for this one. Sign me up!

I think the rules are pretty much fine as they are. Being surprised every two weeks by a character with a possibly very weird build sounds fun. Spectators will just have to wait for Deeds or Guardianship.

 

[Brak]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

Keep the ideas coming, folks... but more importantly, SIGN UP!

I forgot how to make a table

but I'll offer my email address for whomever remembers

prwillia at gmail dot com


Also re: sabatoging. After a bit of reflection, I have decided not to actively sabatoge any characters in future pass it on style tourneys. But speaking from experience, it doesn't matter what rules you instate, sabatoge is easy. If you don't want it, just rule that it is illegal to do anything to a character with the intention of causing a future player to die.

In regards to progress reports. As a player, I extremely do not want to know what is happening with characters that are in the tourney because of the excitement of cracking open that new file after each swap. But I can see the spectators wanting to know. I would suggest allowing progress reports once a character has been played by all remaining players. This way noone loses out on the surprise, and we'll only be getting updates from characters deep into the tourney to keep the thread from getting clulttered.

EDIT: Also in previous tourneys, I tried to get everyone to collect screenshots of their characters before passing them on so we could make a time lapse of the character development. Hopefully something like that can happen again here.

 

[WoRG1]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

I'd definitly be up for this...I've really, really, enjoyed reading about these.

It seems to me that there would be another way to screw over a character...by choosing bad items for the rewards. A character will only recieve 9 useable non-jewelery rares over their entire career, and 3 of those are fairly likely to be for the same slot...poor choices here could be really telling.

Regardless, I'm definitly in!

WoRG

 

[Brak]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

It seems to me that there would be another way to screw over a character...by choosing bad items for the rewards. A character will only recieve 9 useable non-jewelery rares over their entire career, and 3 of those are fairly likely to be for the same slot...poor choices here could be really telling.

Since anything cubed counts as a quest item, it wont really be that big of a deal.

 

[WoRG1]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

Hmmm....I didn't get that impression....

Rule 1 allows 1 rare any(imbue), 1 rare class-specific(anya), and 1 ANY(personalization) per difficulty.

Rule 2 allows whites/greys, Rule 3 allows all jewelery and charms

Rule 4 allows crafting, but doesn't say we can USE non-jewelery crafts without personalization.

Rule 5 allows cubing, IF it doesn't break any other rules

Unless Rule 4 was intended to allow the use of any crafts, I still think that this will mean VERY limited gear choices which could be used to nerf a character...

Rule 6 will help a lot in that regard, non-ladder runewords can help immensely in rounding out a character's gear.

WoRG

 

[purplelocust]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

Jewelry can't be personalized, so I took rule #4 to mean that crafted gear was OK, at least for jewelry, maybe for other gear as well. Thus it would be good to be able to run the Countess/LK to build up crafting ingredients.

 

[smilts]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

After a couple of days of thought I think I will sign up for this. Id like to see it stated that intentional sabotage would disqualify but however you set it up is fine. I agree its nice not knowing what your getting. Lol at this point Ive honestly forgotten how to set a table up, so I to will just add my email.

smiltstomb@gmail . com

 

[Jason Maher]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

Yeah, I'll give it a go. nswhorse(at)gmail(dot)com.

 

[Wolron]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

Wow, I remember most of these forum names!! Yes, Skunkbelly, I will sign up. However, I hope I can remember how to play.... and I hope my Diablo II program still runs... Oh, what is the latest patch????? (Does this mean that I have to stop playing Fallout New Vegas???)

Wolron

wmemmer9 at comcast dot net

 

[Joosh]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

Just thought I'd put up a table for you guys.

==============================================================
Forum Name              Email Address
==============================================================
Brak		 	prwillia   at gmail dot com    
Smilts			smiltstomb at gmail dot com  
Jason Maher		nswhorse   at gmail dot com
Wolron			wmemmer9   at comcast dot net
scrcrw                  Not Given Yet
WoRG                    Not Given Yet

I still haven't decided if I'll enter.

Joosh :thumbup:

 

[purplelocust]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

I'll get a machine up to 1.13 for the purposes of the tourney, since I am still in 1.12 in my own play. It will be no problem as the characters from this tourney are quarantined from everything else anyway.

Screenshots or at least skill and gear allocations at the end of each act would be great to see.

Great to see you Wolron!

==============================================================
Forum Name              Email Address
==============================================================
Brak		 	prwillia   at gmail dot com    
Smilts			smiltstomb at gmail dot com  
Jason Maher		nswhorse   at gmail dot com
Wolron			wmemmer9   at comcast dot net
purplelocust                purple_locust at yahoo.com
scrcrw                  Not Given Yet
WoRG                    Not Given Yet

 

[jiansonz]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

==============================================================
Forum Name              Email Address
==============================================================
Brak		 	prwillia   at gmail dot com    
Smilts			smiltstomb at gmail dot com  
Jason Maher		nswhorse   at gmail dot com
Wolron			wmemmer9   at comcast dot net
purplelocust            purple_locust at yahoo.com
jiansonz	        04084370   at bredband dot net
scrcrw                  Not Given Yet
WoRG                    Not Given Yet

Okay, I´ll bite. :badteeth:

I totally love the idea of assigning one Power in each of Normal Acts III, IV and V! Very interesting.


Some rules questions (and to verify that I´ve understood things right):

1. We can gamble rings, amulets and magical items to craft, but all of them have to stay with that character? Can we shop or gamble items to get potential personalization candidates?

2. No restriction on crafted items? I think this is a good idea, since we all bring with us a "toolbox" of crafting supplies. Crafting would be a good way to customize the gear for a character that is sent to you, if you don´t like the gear that they have.

3. Grey/white items with staffmods may be used, but what about the usage of those skills past Normal? Do they have to be Core Skills for the class, or Powers for that character? Or is wearing those a way to get a little more mileage out of prerequisite points past Normal?

4. What about charges and what about oskills? Are they allowed, or do they need to be Core Skills? Since we are free to use runewords (and can save up a good stash of runes) this is important to know.

5. Can we go back to Act II Normal from later difficulties in order to shop socketed items?

 

[scrcrw]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

==============================================================
Forum Name              Email Address
==============================================================
Brak		 	prwillia   at gmail dot com    
Smilts			smiltstomb at gmail dot com  
Jason Maher		nswhorse   at gmail dot com
Wolron			wmemmer9   at comcast dot net
purplelocust            purple_locust at yahoo.com
jiansonz	        04084370   at bredband dot net
scrcrw                  scrcrw.spf at gmail dot com
WoRG                    Not Given Yet

 

[Joosh]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

==============================================================
Forum Name              Email Address
==============================================================
Brak		 	prwillia   at gmail dot com   
Jason Maher		nswhorse   at gmail dot com 
jiansonz	        04084370   at bredband dot net
Joosh			jooshm     at gmail dot com
purplelocust            purple_locust at yahoo dot com
scrcrw                  scrcrw.spf at gmail dot com
Smilts			smiltstomb at gmail dot com  
Wolron			wmemmer9   at comcast dot net
WoRG                    Not Given Yet

Now in Alphabetical order and featuring Joosh! :thumbup:

 

[tavaritz]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

As a nitpicker standards checking coder here is my take on the item rules as they were originally posted:

EQUIPMENT RULES

1. Non-jewelry Items that have inherent magical qualities (including all unique, rare, magical, and set items) may ONLY be used if they have been received or modified through a quest reward. Magical items permitted therefore include:
a. Charsi imbue rewards (items must be redeemed before leaving Act 1 in that difficulty).
b. Items personalized using the act 5 quest reward.
c. Anya rescue quest reward class-specific items.

Part a is easy because of 2. You can imbue any item you want, what is unclear as rule 2. doesn't mention it: can the white etc. items mentioned in 2. bought?

Part b goes down on what you can use as a base for the personalization. I guess all found items are ok. But what about gambles or store bought items?

Part c is easy because you get those items. It was further clarified that you can (temporarily) use such quest items as the Gidbinn, The Viper Amulet etc.

2. All white items, all non-magical ethereal items, and all non-magic socketed items may be used. Sockets may be filled with anything you like.

This is easy. This also means that all socketfillers are useable and makes rule 6 unnecessary.

3. You may use any jewelry and any charms you like.

Nothing to comment.

4. You may craft items.

Unnecessary rule as rule 5. covers this. Crafting is using Cube to create items.

5. You may use the Cube to create items, provided they do not break any of the rules above.

I don't see what the last part means. Rules 1. to 4. cover what you can equip, not what you can use as a base item for cube recipes or even for personalization. So this rule should state exactly what items can be used in cube recipes.

6. You may make and use runeword items.

Unnecessary rule as rule 2. already allows one to socket items which ever way they like.

7. Gambling is allowed for jewelry only, or for blue magic items to craft.

Too vague and better to make excact rules what can be used in cube recipes. Anyways why restrict gambling or shopping when you restricting what can be equipped. Let them spend their money on items they cannot use.


They way the equipment rules are written you cannot use anything you buy from a shop. So tough luck if you don't find tomes in the Jail (or was it the Catacombs).

 

[jiansonz]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

Since the rules do not say anything about shopping non-equipment items (tomes, scrolls, potions, keys, missiles) I assumed that there are no restrictions on those.

 

[tavaritz]

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

Since the rules do not say anything about shopping non-equipment items (tomes, scrolls, potions, keys, missiles) I assumed that there are no restrictions on those.

You can assume whatever you like, but I normally read tourney rules: What ever is not permitted is forbidden.