Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge
- Thread starter skunkbelly
- Start date
sirpoopsalot
New member
Ai received. She should be interesting, as I haven't tried enough assasins to be comfortable with her skill-set. Nevertheless, I have some ideas...
skunkbelly
New member
If you have not yet finished Normal, please do so asap... by my count, we're still waiting on scarred_life, freekje and JoeBruce.
If you've finished act 1 NM, go ahead and send your character forward... but nobody should begin act 2 NM yet, please.
If you've finished act 1 NM, go ahead and send your character forward... but nobody should begin act 2 NM yet, please.
purplelocust
New member
GertrudeStein has been sent onward to crazy_bear and I am looking forward to seeing Frost, I think.
Gertrude Stein is far better known than any of the previous poets I've had to play, so rather than quote something of hers ("a rose is a rose" etc.) I thought I'd give some background on one of her misunderstood quotes, which is often taken as a dig at Oakland, California. It's usually quoted as "There is no `there' there" and taken to mean that Oakland, about which she said this upon returning, is a wasteland.
Oakland is a city that is always living in the shadow of much more glamorous San Francisco across the bay. I've never lived in Oakland but I lived close to it, in Berkeley, a number of years ago and I agree with my friends who have lived in Oakland that Oakland is a great place and certainly much better than it ever gets credit for.
What she actually said was not so concise:
"What was the use of my having come from Oakland it was not natural to have come from there yes write about it if I like or anything if I like but not there, there is no there there. "
She was returning to Oakland, where she grew up, after an extended time away from Oakland, mostly living in Paris. The places she remembered from her youth were all gone- the hotel she lived in had burned down, the sincere Victorian neighborhood she'd lived in was done over tastelessly, and the 10-acre homestead near orchards was developed into housing. This is what that site currently looks like:
Google maps satellite image of her old 10-acre homestead site
I think what she was saying more was just along the lines of "you can't go home again" if your childhood world has changed, rather than complaining particularly about Oakland- it was just that the Oakland she remembered was gone.
Gertrude Stein is far better known than any of the previous poets I've had to play, so rather than quote something of hers ("a rose is a rose" etc.) I thought I'd give some background on one of her misunderstood quotes, which is often taken as a dig at Oakland, California. It's usually quoted as "There is no `there' there" and taken to mean that Oakland, about which she said this upon returning, is a wasteland.
Oakland is a city that is always living in the shadow of much more glamorous San Francisco across the bay. I've never lived in Oakland but I lived close to it, in Berkeley, a number of years ago and I agree with my friends who have lived in Oakland that Oakland is a great place and certainly much better than it ever gets credit for.
What she actually said was not so concise:
"What was the use of my having come from Oakland it was not natural to have come from there yes write about it if I like or anything if I like but not there, there is no there there. "
She was returning to Oakland, where she grew up, after an extended time away from Oakland, mostly living in Paris. The places she remembered from her youth were all gone- the hotel she lived in had burned down, the sincere Victorian neighborhood she'd lived in was done over tastelessly, and the 10-acre homestead near orchards was developed into housing. This is what that site currently looks like:
Google maps satellite image of her old 10-acre homestead site
I think what she was saying more was just along the lines of "you can't go home again" if your childhood world has changed, rather than complaining particularly about Oakland- it was just that the Oakland she remembered was gone.
purplelocust
New member
Frost received and inspected, so I'm waiting for the green light for A2 NM.
I was asking the same thing a while ago (posts #189 and the response is #190)- there are some circumstances such as deciding what to imbue, socket, or personalize where knowing what is ahead is an advantage, so I think it's fair to not look at characters until you are done with the preceding one, and that's pretty much what Skunkbelly said. Certainly doing something totally motivated by the specifics of what your next character is like is not fair, I would say. It is good, though, when you get a character, to open the character for a quick inspection and confirm that things are in good shape so the person before you knows that they can delete the character. When I asked before, Skunkbelly said not to worry about it if you did look at the next character, but there was encouragement not to look before you finished the previous character.
Opening the next character for inspection is one of the great parts of the tourney- it's interesting to see how things are and try to puzzle out a good approach with the gear from your stash.
Spent most of my D2 time this weekend hunting the Countess for runes. She hasn't coughed up a single Shael of which I'd like 3 for various runewords, and armor upgrading. But amazingly this afternoon she dropped me a Lum :jig: . Since I don't have a two socket armor for Smoke, hoping I can cube one from my items stash a little more successfully than the disappointment with my personalization reward.
And I'd like to say a million Thank You's :flowers: to whoever donated the Magewrath. This thing is incredible. I think I could take out most of NM with a single point in decoy and this bow.
And I'd like to say a million Thank You's :flowers: to whoever donated the Magewrath. This thing is incredible. I think I could take out most of NM with a single point in decoy and this bow.
skunkbelly
New member
scarred_life has written to withdraw from the tournament. No problem... what I need to know is whether Milb has received Sidney or not. After that, I'll know which character to delete, and which to pass along to Milb, and we'll be back on track... so Milb, let me know as soon as you can which character you received last.
Milosz was sent... I forgot to take off his weapon switch equipment before I sent him though, so please delete those.
Nightmare has begun, and I must say I have found quite a few charms that have come in handy so far. Just starting Act1 I found +5 dex/28 fire res grand charm... in addition to that I've found some decent light and cold res, as well as strength and dex charms. These are all very helpful when you're not sure what your next character will be or what gear they will be using.
Anyone else found anything particularly useful so far?
Nightmare has begun, and I must say I have found quite a few charms that have come in handy so far. Just starting Act1 I found +5 dex/28 fire res grand charm... in addition to that I've found some decent light and cold res, as well as strength and dex charms. These are all very helpful when you're not sure what your next character will be or what gear they will be using.
Anyone else found anything particularly useful so far?
sirpoopsalot
New member
- My charms have mostly come in 3 flavours so far - +stamina, +life, +dex. It's not every one, but I'd say that ~50% of all of my charm finds have been some variation of these stats. The life & dex ones have proven handy though.
- As for runes, bah, the countess hates me. ~150 runs and 2xDol, 1xShael, 2xSol (the rest are <=Thul).
- I also tried the socketing recipe for a shield and got one socket.
- Of course, to counter the bad luck I've had ~15 sets/uniques drop so far in NM. I guess my HC grail is imroving at least.
Unless my luck improves for tourney-accepted drops, I'll be holding onto this char until the deadline trying desperately to cube a Lum.
- As for runes, bah, the countess hates me. ~150 runs and 2xDol, 1xShael, 2xSol (the rest are <=Thul).
- I also tried the socketing recipe for a shield and got one socket.
- Of course, to counter the bad luck I've had ~15 sets/uniques drop so far in NM. I guess my HC grail is imroving at least.
Unless my luck improves for tourney-accepted drops, I'll be holding onto this char until the deadline trying desperately to cube a Lum.
Billybgame
New member
Milosz received, and weapon swap items deleted.
skunkbelly
New member
As I mentioned, scarred_life has left the party. After a little researching and a little confusion, we've decided to delete Quasimodo... Milb will pick up in NM act 1 with Sidney.
Code:
LIVING PLAYERS:
Forum Name Starting Char/Class Email address
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Skunkbelly Ai - Assassin tworiversreviewATjunoDOTcom
2) Milb Dickinson - Sorceress jimbomilburn(at)hotmail.com
3) Ohomemgrande Eliot - Necromancer ohgrande at gmail.com
4) Brak Frost - Barbarian [email protected]
5) sirpoopsalot Gertrude-Stein - Amazon apr25_1976 @ yahoo.com
6) waflob HD - Assassin waflob at hotmail dot com
7) Butzull Ignatow - Paladin gavin_warwick (*at*) hotmail (*dot*) com
8) EJB Jarrell - Druid ejbxraytedATgmail.com
9) Wolron Kenyon - Sorceress [email protected]
10) PurpleLocust Lowell - Necromancer purple_locust (*at*) yahoo (*dot*) com
11) Crazy_Bear Milosz - Barbarian flyingplatypus30 (*at*) yahoo (*dot*) ca
12) Hp_Sauce Notley - Amazon mighty_hp_sauce @ hotmail.com
13) Hrus Olga - Assassin [email protected]
14) Hoop76 Pound - Paladin [email protected]
15) JoeBruce Quasimodo - Druid [email protected]
16) Billybgame Sidney - Necromancer [email protected]
17) Freekje Tennyson - Barbarian freekje18(*at*)hotmail(*dot*)com
18) Gabriel Updike - Amazon [email protected]
DEAD/RETIRED PLAYERS:
Forum Name Starting Character/Class Character Killed
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Smilts Charles-Wright - Druid Charles-Wright
Tensaiga Rosetti - Sorceress Rosetti (abandoned)
Scarred_life Bishop - Paladin Quasimodo (abandoned)purplelocust
New member
Does that mean we can see the development of Quasimodo, via screenshots or summaries, at this point? I never got a chance to meet him and have no idea what build he was or how things were going with him and of course I am curious.
skunkbelly
New member
If you played Quasimodo, send him your final character file... he can compile our step-by-step portrait 
