Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

For safety's sake, and to ensure that I wouldn't miss any parts of it, I decided to clear out all of Ancients' Way again. That felt a bit like cheating (I know the tourney rules say we can do runs, but single-pass is my own rule) but the monster draw was tougher this time: Hell Lords (including some nasty bosses), abominables and Afflicted so I didn´t feel that bad about it.

I used Teleport charges on my amulet to separate out the Ancients. First up was Madawc, who was easy once I had recast the Grizzly so it took the damage instead of Mizan. Korlic was a pushover (Teleport + Spectral Hit). Talic was much nastier: FE + Cursed. Binks didn´t dare going close for fear of getting whirled at while Amped, so Mizan did pretty much all of the damage himself. I had him use Kelpie first, to get the slowing going, then a 'Strength' Hyperion Spear for massive Crushing Blows, and finish off with Kelpie again. Total potion use: one healing and two full purples. :)


During the late half of WSK 1, I did find a 3-socket max helm. Recipe yielded maximum sockets, so I could make this. (I like it that I made it in such a 'posh' item type. I mean, it´s both regal style and also, you can count the number of Coronas I have ever seen drop on one hand (one of the five was set quality...).)

WSK 1 had a tough monster draw, with Amp-tossing witches, Death Lords and Zealots/Heirophants. I had hoped Delirium would make it easier and safer.
Did it? Not at all! The Confused monsters just drew far too much attention to the fight! With all those ranged attackers, this was BAD. In addition, I missed two important abilities for the merc that were present on the old crafted helm: poison damage and his only source of life steal.

I can imagine Delirium being awesome for a melee character (especially those with a ranged merc) without much other crowd control, but it didn´t work well here, not for this character the way I play it, at least. Took back the Blood helm.


Throne level had Death Lords, Doom Knights and snakes. Nothing too bothersome, and the five waves weren´t too tough either.

Then I had probably my easiest fight ever vs. Hell Baal. I kept switching merc weapons (Kelpie and Strength) to keep both slowing and CB going. Unlike the Ancients fight, Binks was in there, adding constant Hurricane damage.


[Highlight]Guardian Binks the Wind Druid and Mizan the Holy Freeze guard, level 87, Complete Act V Hell clear[/Highlight]


It was interesting to try this build. Undeniably powerful, but I didn´t like the gameplay that much. When I play casters, I prefer to be far away (read: enemies at the edge of screen) from the action.

Of all the acts I played in this tourney, Chewbacca in Nightmare Act V was the most memorable for me. I like to think that I took him from 'quite underpowered and underlevelled' to 'reasonably buttkicking' in this act. :wink:
 
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Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

Well done!

I'm glad you were able to make Delirium but it's too bad it didn't work well for you. A5 Hell is a difficult place to experiment with gameplay, particularly single-pass! I like Delirium, but not having another source of life leech is a big problem!

So that now makes everyone alive except Dooku a Guardian? It would be great to hear from Thomh how Dooku is doing!
 
Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

Nice work, jiansonz!

Now just one more to go...
 
Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

Woe, oh woe!

I though I had posted this before I went on vacation, but my connection must have messed up:(

My beautiful necromancer died while searching for Nihlatak due to some poisonous bugged vipers. I probably could have stopped my necro`s movements, but I`m way too slow and hot-headed for that:(

My skellies lured out a couple of snakes and I tried to position myself in order to not get hit when one of the sneaky little buggers came from behind, courtesy of a stray skeleton trying to engage a pack around the corner all by himself. One of the vipers tried to follow my little brave skeleton and he caught me completely off-guard as I focused too much on avoiding shots from the pack of monsters in front of me. Clicking like a madman all over the screen didn`t help me one bit given the nature of the poison bug and poor Dooku was dead in an instant.

Congratulations to everyone who made guardian and I`m sorry I couldn`t join your ranks.

Thanks to Skunkbelly for a fantastic tournament. It has been incredibly fun!
 
Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

Sorry to hear about the loss of Dooku- those viper clouds are indeed very nasty. Though I never played Dooku, from his description I had figured Dooku as a far more likely Guardian than Kenobi. But HC is HC and viper clouds are deadly...
 
Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

Tough break, I fully expected to see at least one deeds from the Nihl temple area :(
 
Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

Should we write up Guardian threads for characters? People might be interested in seeing gear and skills and so on. I've only had Chewbacca for 3 acts total but those were all in Hell so I could write about that. I worked out how much I played each of the survivors total:

Chewbacca: 3 acts
Kenobi: 2 acts
Organa, Palpatine, and Binks: 1 act each.

So that gives me 8/15 of a Guardian or so- surely someone else played a larger number of acts with eventual Guardians!
 
Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

LOL...careful, its best to use caution when poking at a skunk...:scared:

WoRG
 
Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

Skunkbelly hasn't been around in a while (more than a month) should we think about writing up some of the Guardians?
 
I'm rather bummed not to finish the cows :(

Has anyone tried pm'ing him? A lot of people get an email when they get a pm, and he possibly would respond to it.

Although I guess we have his email as well, maybe someone should give that a shot ar least.
 
Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

I've also tried another email address and that's also bouncing.
 
Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

I hope that nothing bad has happened in RL!

( i was really looking foward to playing in the next SUTC)

Then again my mum forced her fiance to give up WOW as it was draining his life, Maybe he is in a similiar situation.
 
Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

I've seen Wolron post recently, anybody tried PM'ing him? I recon he might be able to get ahold of Skunkbelly:whistling:

WoRG
 
Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

OH NOES!

Sorry everyone. RL is fine, just crazy busy, and I haven't been in for a while, as you discovered.

Congrats to all of the Guardians! I have to admit that I did not expect to see so many when we started... but you have defied my expectations.

On to the tie breaker...

For the tie-breaker, everyone will keep the character they made Guardian with. With that character, you shall kill every cow in the Secret Cow Level (Hell difficulty, of course). Those who perish obviously don't win the tie-breaker.

For those who survive this task, the final tie breaker will be this: you are to save any runes and S/U items you find in the Cow Pastures, and the one who finds the highest rune wins. In the case of a rune tie, then the best S/U item (as determined by moi) will determine our final winner.

Go!

And I promise not to stay away so darn long this time.
 
Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

YAY!!!!

The skunk returneth!!!!

I'll set to work on it! This was actually my exact thought for the final tiebreaker. Good idea I think.

Too bad this isn't 1.09, I'd be all over those /players64 cows :crazyeyes:
 
Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011

Great to hear from you, Skunkbelly!

I expect to have to play Chewbacca a little bit in A5 before setting foot in cows as I am a bit rusty on his skills and gameplay! It would be a pity to be lost to the cows after coming so far...
 
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