SPF 99er Compendium -- Linked Posts Archive

Originally posted July 2016 by Nano in Untwinked Level 99 Progress Thread, Revenge of the 99ers

@Pb_pal - Win the race? I don't know, it's going to take months for me. :eek:

I did find the 3 shrines + well with the preferred Halls of Pain map, although Halls of Vaught isn't the best. In the Halls of Vaught screenie, the 3rd shrine is slightly off to the side, so it's costing me almost a second to check it. Convenient well for the occasional heal. 4k life & CoS is enough to run comfortably- the tomb vipers are blinded, and I have enough life to tank multiple CE's, even amp'ed. Your 2k life is a little scary, but at least nature's peace prevents CE there.

As far as shrine effectiveness goes, I tried to quantify the long terms benefits. I only have a small sample size of 203 runs, but 33 (about 16%) of those runs ended with a successful exp. shrine kill, meaning it didn't get cursed off by Nihla or the witches. It's rare but sometimes I can get past the witches and blind them before they cast their curse. Cursed Nihla I just have to dodge his arctic blast.

From what I can find about shrine odds, it's about 8.2% (9/110) chance to find exp. booster from that shrine class. With 3 shrines, it's 22.6% chance to find at least one exp. boost. 10 monster types can spawn in Halls of Vaught, with 3 randomly chosen every time. 3/10 chance for hell temptress, and assuming shrine lost there, it's 22.6%*7/10 = 15.8% to keep an exp. shrine for the kill. Very close to my actual success rate.

16% exp. shrine rate translates to 8% more experience, or about 1k less Nihla runs.
A 30 sec. no shrine Nihla is equivalent to a (30*1.08) 32.4 sec. 3 shrine Nihla run, so checking those shrines better take almost no extra time.

So how about that 2 shrine map? Rerun the numbers and I get 5.5% more exp. The difference between a 2 and 3 shrine map is 2.5%, assuming no time loss on that 3rd shrine. So not a big difference. There are diminishing returns on extra shrines, but it's small at this point. On that note, maybe my 3rd shrine is barely worth that extra teleport?
 
Originally posted August 2010 by onderduiker in Dealing with Tomb Vipers Thread

What follows is a detailed explanation of Tomb Viper cloud mechanics: if you just want to know their physical damage per collision, scroll to the bottom.

The Tomb Viper's A1 attack has a missile assigned to it (viper_poisjav in Missiles.txt) and this attack applies both physical and poison damage, 100% of which is applied by this javelin on collision. Since the javelin is destroyed on impact, this damage is only applied once.

However, this javelin can release up to 14 clouds in its wake (viper_poisjavcloud in Missiles.txt), each of which applies 100% of the javelin's damage. This means that they apply the A1 attack's physical and poison damage on collision too: although these clouds aren't destroyed on impact and they linger, Last Collide is enabled, which normally prevents a missile from colliding with its last target and thus applying its damage or effects again.

There are two circumstances in which the physical and poison damage of the clouds can be applied multiple times in quick succession. The first is when you move and collide with multiple clouds: since Tomb Vipers spawn in groups of 2-3, a single salvo of 2-3 javelins can generate up to 28-42 clouds and moving through them can thus result in damage being applied up to 28-42 times. The second is when two targets are overlapping or standing close enough together to collide with the same cloud(s): since enabling Last Collide only prevents a missile from colliding with its last target, each cloud collides with the targets alternately and thus applies its damage every other frame (averaging 12.5 times per second).

Obviously players have complained about this, but unfortunately these complaints met with the following post on the Battle.net forums:

Based on what's already been described, that's probably true from a coding perspective: apart from everything else, viper_poisjavcloud is the only missile which uses the SrcMissDam column in Missiles.txt (this is what makes it apply the javelin's damage), suggesting this column may have been inserted for this specific case. Last Collide probably works as intended, since otherwise information would have to be stored of every single target hit by every single missile for which it was enabled.

However, there is one way in which the clouds are almost certainly bugged (or at least not working as intended, unless Blizzard are evil): they're only supposed to last for 2.4 seconds (60 frames). While they do so visibly, they last for at least another 4.8 seconds (120 frames) invisibly.

To avoid multiple collisions and thus multiple applications of damage a player should stand still, away from any other targets and not move for at least five seconds after the clouds have apparently disappeared. Note that Teleporting with a hireling or pet won't necessarily keep you safe: if a Sorceress teleports into a cloud with a hireling, the cloud will still collide alternately with both of them... and if she teleports into multiple clouds...

Tomb Viper AI can also be altered to prevent them from firing their javelins in the first place: casting Dim Vision at the edge of the screen is probably the surest means of doing so, although casting pets within their mêlée range or casting Cloak of Shadows or Mind Blast, Howl, Taunt, Grim Ward, Terror, Confuse or Attract at range are other possibilities.

Another possibility is negating the damage so that it doesn't matter how many collisions there are. Since poison damage is designed to be applied every frame, the damage which is applied by each collision is negligible: at worst, when a cloud's Last Collide is overridden extra frames of poison damage will be applied every other frame, increasing the rate of damage by 50% and resetting the length for which that rate is applied. Furthermore, when Last Collide is overridden each additional cloud should increase the rate of damage by 50%: two clouds will double the rate (+100%), four clouds will triple it (+200%), and so on.

The danger comes from multiple applications of the modest physical damage, which increases by 6.25% with every additional player in Ladder and single-player games in Nightmare and Hell, can be increased by +% Enhanced Damage and doubled by a critical hit (although these only occur on 5% of collisions). On the flip side, cloud collisions can be blocked and an Assassin's Weapon Block and an Amazon's Avoid and Evade are effective.

No random Champion or Unique Tomb Vipers spawn in the Halls of Vaught, so the only ones you'll find are those that spawn from Evil Urns or in set locations at the end of the halls: if you know how to find Nihlathak, then you never need to encounter them (and it's certainly worth avoiding Champions, or Extra Strong Tomb Vipers that spawn Aura Enchanted and Cursed... and damage of other types can also be added by elemental enchantments). However, Nihlathak himself can be enchanted with Might (level 12 applying +150% ED in Nightmare, level 15 applying +180% ED in Hell) or Fanaticism (level 9 applying +93% ED in Nightmare, level 11 applying +110% ED in Hell). Below is the physical damage the javelin and clouds will apply under various conditions, rounded up to the nearest point when +% ED is applied:

Nightmare
Code:
TOMB VIPER       PLAYERS
                 1        2        3        4        5        6        7        8
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Normal            23- 31   24- 32   25- 34   27- 36   28- 38   30- 40   31- 42   33- 44
+ 9 Fanaticism    45- 60   47- 62   49- 66   53- 70   55- 74   58- 78   60- 82   64- 85
+12 Might         58- 78   60- 80   63- 85   68- 90   70- 95   75-100   78-105   83-110
Since integer damage reduction is applied before percentage damage reduction (also known as Damage Resist %), if you're cursed with Amplify Damage (DR -100%) this isn't really an issue when no +% ED is applied if you're equipping DR >43 in an eight-player game (although the occasional critical hit will hurt more unless you're equipping DR >87).

The bright side of +% ED applying to cloud damage is that -% ED also does so: casting Weaken (-33% ED), Decrepify (-50% ED), Battle Cry (-(24+(1*lvl))% ED) or Taunt (-(3+(2*lvl))% ED) will decrease physical damage, although the impact will be much less significant when +% ED is also being applied.

Hell
Code:
TOMB VIPER       PLAYERS
                 1        2        3        4        5        6        7        8
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Normal            42- 56   44- 59   47- 63   49- 66   52- 70   55- 73   57- 77   60- 80
+11 Fanaticism    89-118   93-124   99-133  103-139  110-147  116-154  120-162  126-168
+15 Might        118-157  124-166  132-177  138-185  146-196  154-205  160-216  168-224
Nihlathak can spawn Cursed and Aura Enchanted in Hell, so if you're not careful Tomb Viper clouds can still be dangerous even when copious quantities of -% ED, DR and even DR % are applied.
 
Originally posted December 2017 by PhineasB in Untwinked Level 99 Progress Thread, Revenge of the 99ers

Nice vid, @ffs ! But are you sure you had it on p8? Nihl was dropping way too fast (especially compared to Hiatus) :eek:

But seriously, that's a nice setup on HelpYourself to judge by those runs. Without the S&E issue and based on the vid, I think HelpYourself has a real shot at eclipsing 3M XP/hr. Even with 25s average runs, you'd be well over that assuming 23,000 XP/run. I look forward to seeing how it goes!

Also, I really like your map. I prefer that layout #3 for Halls of Pain and think your shrines are very solid. I found it's hard to get a 3-shrine map with all three directly on your teleport line, and it looked like you have two that are directly on line. The shrine right down the stairs before going to Nihl is also ideal, in my view.

On vipers, I'll echo what @T72on1 said. And thanks to @ioupainmax for linking to Onderduiker's post. Now I don't have to track it down!

They are really not dangerous as long as you and your merc aren't next to each other. Once I started doing the step-back he described (which was often more of a side-step for Hiatus that you can see in her ping vid), they really weren't a threat . . . unless you accidentally teleport into a cloud or get too greedy and don't bail when amped and at risk of being in our of their clouds, as Hiatus found out. :oops:

But that's one tip I'd offer from watching your vid: teleporting to scan the full area for drops could be very dangerous because that brings your merc right next to you. Sometimes you might not notice that vipers rolled (maybe if there are just a few to the northwest of Nihl's platform on your map). You could find yourself in a green cloud, worst case while amped. With both Mercy and Hiatus, I stopped teleporting onto the platform early on after experiencing a scary moment for both. It's a little slower to walk/run rather than teleport but it was worth it to me to minimize the risk.

Also, I think the most dangerous roll for a sorc is witches when Nihl has might and to a lesser degree fanatacism. Their red stars of death can tear through the character in a blink. That roll was an immediate S&E for Hiatus, and there were two panicked S&Es where I hadn't noticed the aura initially. So definitely be on the lookout for that also.

Finally, I think you could streamline the runs even more if you avoid tagging shrines that aren't XP (and gem because it looks like you plan to reroll GCs as you go). They really don't make a difference to run speed, and even if it's just a split second to TK it, those will add up over ~12,000 runs.

Again, very cool to see that vid! Good luck and stay safe :)
 
Originally posted September 2017 by Pb_pal in Quest for level 99 Thread

To be fair I think @NanoMist also didn't die in the last level (other than an initial death in like his first 100 runs or something), but thanks for all the accolades anyways:D

PhineasB said: " But I've found the biggest path to safety is not being shy about S & E, and I guess 500 hit points wouldn't really alter that calculus!"

This. I S+E'd like you wouldn't believe. Also, I had an extremely reliable corner to go to where I would often be completely left alone but could still attack Nihl with Blizz. I just went straight down to the lower right "SE" corner of the room, from there my merc would sprint out to the baddies and get caught up in any danger. If the corner was occupied, I exited. Could be that my map was just fortunate in the spawn locations, but that strategy worked wonders for me. Also obviously watch out for any really dangerous combos (Vipers + fanat, Conviction, etc etc). This post of mine details generally what was causing me to abort, for those curious.

Nano said: "When I ran Nihlathak I only made sure to have enough fire resistance to tank his CE, although I didn't stack for conviction."

FR is probably the only one to really worry about. Eleanor had maxed out FR and LR IIRC, and that (obviously) suited her just fine. I would prioritize FR and life equally, but life above all other resistances.
 
Originally posted December 2016 by T72on1 in Untwinked Level 99 Progress Thread, Revenge of the 99ers

@Pb_pal @NanoMist You guys really cleared the path for the rest of us with your analysis, based on your own experience. We can't thank you enough for it. I wonder if the info provided by you guys, as well as @Gripphon 's tests and other info and some other tidbits, can't be pinned as some kind of guide to get to 99. This would be a tremendous resource. Now people always have to start searching and asking again.

A few random notes, mostly based on my own experience.

- Pb_pal covered the journey past level 90. Before that, there are 2 stages: getting through the game, to your target of choice in Hell, and running optional (but recommended) areas for gear.

1) getting through the game as fast as possible actually isn't that important in the grand scheme of things (doesn't matter if it takes you 10 hours or 20, when those last few levels will take hundreds of hours), but it's always fun to maximize efficiency. After all you start out with that one big goal of getting to 99, and you're full of motivation and energy to do so, might as well get efficient asap :).

So just make sure to get through the game as fast as possible. Keep player setting at /p1 if necessary. Just get to Normal Pindle as fast as possible, and keep running him on the highest player setting which you can handle while still maintaining good killing speed. Once you are level 40 - 45, move on to NM and to the same until level 75. Only run or rerun certain targets if you really think that it's worth it for that piece of gear which will greatly increase your killing speed. Getting that runes from Countess or that base item from a rack in LK for runewords like Spirit and Insight comes to mind, although usually you'll get those just by getting through the game.

2) In Hell you can go straight for your target, which should be Pit, AT or Pindle (the latter only up to the high eighties, maybe not even past 85). But often your gear won't be good enough to run those efficiently, and you are better off running Meph for uniques like Shako, Arachnid's, Chance Guards, Skullder's Ire, War Travelers, and LK for the runes needed for HotO, CtA, CoH, and if you aren't a Sorc, Enigma. Except for the Enigma for non-Sorcs, none of these are absolutely required, depending on your other gear, but they will make your life a lot easier (especially the CtA), and you should be able to get the necessary runes within' a reasonable amount of time. Since most of the time on this journey is spent on the last few levels, and killing power and survivability is everything at that point, you'll easily win back the time you lost by running LK and/or Meph at those later stages.

- I didn't really care for mf on my gear much, mostly because I found a Shako in early Hell and I figured that most of the other items I really wanted were runewords anyway (CtA, HotO, CoH), but if you also want some specific uniques / sets, it might be worth it to focus on it some more. I also didn't run Meph, like I usually do when starting over, but again this was because of the reasons mentioned above, and I know of others who did and with great success. After all I still don't have that Arachnid's ...

In the later stages, say 95+, killing speed is everything, and you only should include mf if it doesn't take away from your killing speed. At least, for max efficiency. If you don't care to run a tad slower and feel like getting better drops will better keep you motivated along the way, by all means do so.

- Which brings us to another point: fun !!! Everyone will be very motivated when they start this journey. But when the real grind kicks in, you have to stay motivated as well. After all it's still a game, and one you play to have fun. It would be a shame if someone burns out on D2 on the whole because the grind drives him or her insane. So despite the fact that we all have been talking about and giving tips about efficiency here, don't neglect the fact that you should still be having fun. It's not as refreshing as starting a new character, it's not as exciting as participating in that MFO or RFO and get awesome drops quite often, it's not as cool as trying out that new runeword on a concept character ... it will always be a grind up to a certain degree. But try to find things that keep it fun for you. Alternate targets for a while if you feel like it. Switch CS with Baal if that's what keeps you going. Get back to AT for a while. Hit Travincal in search for runes, jewelry and gold like I did, even if your 99er runner doesn't need it, because you never know what you get (a Cham in my case) and the drops might allow you to start brainstorming on other D2 projects or characters.

- In the same vein, I plan to include at least some Baal runs when I hit level 98, even if Nihl or CS are more efficient. I have always had that image of getting to 99 means endless Baal runs, so now finally taking on such a big project without a single Baal run ... not's gonna happen ;). I might switch to lightning sorc for that, if I have found the gear by then, because of the same reason: I used to think that 99ers are Baal running Lightning Sorcs almost exclusively, next to Hammerdins.

Little side note (or question actually): where are Lightning Sorcs in this entire story of getting to 99? There are quite some Lightning Sorcs among the 40 99ers in this thread, but none in the current iteration of the 99ers afaik. Are Lightning Sorcs slow? Just slower compared to Blizzard Sorcs? Or also compared to other builds in this iteration, like Trapsin, Windy, Hammerdin?

- Anyway, on to the tips and tidbits. Try to see what works best for you, and don't assume that what works for others, works for you as well. When I first looked at Gripphon's numbers for CS, I just went like 'let's just quit, I'm so slow'. Until I realized he is one of the fastest runners around these parts, and he was using a fully decked out character for the run, not an untwinked one. I'm slowly upping my killing speed, getting in the 75K/min range for CS runs at level 97. It's still a bit slower than Pb_pal was and quite a lot slower than Neksja, but that's how it is. It makes no sense to keep looking at those numbers, keep on looking at the fact that Gripphon stated that Blizz Sorcs are faster than Hammerdins, while Neksja is faster than me. It's my runs, and I should do it as efficient, fast but still fun as possible in my own power, not compared to others.

- At level 97 I'm not killing boss packs in CS anymore, unless they are really close to the seal bosses, so it requires no extra effort to kill them. I don't stop at packs in between seal packs anymore. Based on some tests I have the impression I get more xp/hour this way, but that doesn't mean it is indeed better for me, let alone for others.

That's all I can think of for now.
 
Originally posted June 2017 by Pb_pal in Untwinked Level 99 Progress Thread, Revenge of the 99ers

Run 3078 - Pul
Run 3082 - Pul

Then we had ourselves a nice 500+ run dry streak before:

Run 3602 - Sur

Always pop the poppables. Always.

After some fiddling with the cube Stevesy had a new toy:

1597007786930.png

He even made something for his mercenary friend too! (after reviving him for the first time since he started LK runs. Sorry Jemali!)

1597007795753.png

I would have made more RWs, but I don't have any suitable bases :p. Stevesy is going to take a rest for now, and next up he will try to make his way to Act 4 and get the Fortress WP before rolling a nice circular LK map.


Other finds:
- Trangs Shield
 
Originally posted May 2018 SPF 99er Compendium

A question: the 'class-specific deets' subsection does a great job at pointing out which build work or at least should work and which not. I was wondering however, how more exotic builds would fare. Imagine if you can take any runeword out there, would that open up other builds that can do well to get to 99? I'm mainly thinking Dual Dream Sorc for example, but I'm interested in anything really.

Also, what about shapeshifters? They can be very safe and at the same time have fast killing speed, so in my opinion that's 2 out of 3 specific needs for a good 99er character already covered. However, the third specific need is fast movement speed, and I'm not sure if you can mix it in in a proper way with the other 2 factors and as such keep a well balanced character. I'm specifically thinking about a Doom / Phoenix Furywolf, but my question applies to all kinds of shapeshifters.

Btw I wasn't sure where to post my question: here or in the quest for level 99 thread. @PhineasB or anyone else: if you think it's more suited in the latter, my post can be moved to that thread instead.
Dual dream sorcs should be fine, in particular in bear form. If I somehow get 2 Jah runes and an extra Ber with my new untwinked sorc, dual dream bear will be my option for the final push.

Shapeshifters have the drawback that they can only teleport in human form which makes short runs rather clunky
You don't have to use teleport, there are 99ers in the SPF without it. Interesting builds can certainly be successful. I'm pretty sure that there is a level 99 Wolfbarb.
No of course you don't have to. You can use basically any weapon/gear it's just a matter of time (and blood, sweat and tears) :)
And occasionally moaning :p
I guess we all praise fast builds and asks "which build can do level 99 fastest?" I wanna know who have grinded the longest period of time for 99 :D
Agreed.

I'd actually want to do Baal for that matter, if I go for another 99er. Maybe not completely, but at the least for a big part of the journey. I always thought that getting to 99 was done at Baal before joining the SPF, so it has always felt wrong somewhat to not have done a single Baal run with Neverland, other than that one run to get to Matriarch.

So it doesn't have to be fastest around. But no way I'm going to spend twice or three times the amount needed compared to one of the usual suspects (Sorcs, Trappers, Hammerdins, ...) to get to 99. Too much other fun stuff to do in D2. And in general :). And yes, that includes RL ...
Of course any hell-viable build can do it. :)

As Bear Sorc has been mentioned, she is a great Baal runner, had lots of fun with her myself. Many characters can run Baal at reasonable speed, from WW Barb to Zealot to melee Druid etc., shouldn't make that much of a difference in run times, at least when using cookie-cutter gear. And of course Concentrate Barb or Smiter are both great for running Nihl for the last level, including untwinked as proven by zticazzy with his unbelievable Barb (though that character clearly belongs in the "don't try this at home" category ;)).

It's just that builds without area damage will take much longer to level overall. It would definitely be cool to do it with some kind of exotic melee build, but it may not be so appealing anymore when realizing it makes a difference of hundreds of hours. :rolleyes: (Doing it without Enigma then basically doubles that once more...)

In any case, I'd definitely root for some whacky 99er build like that. ;)
I planned my untwinked 99er around doing Baal, I'm done with CS pretty much for the rest of my life :p
@ffs pretty much nailed it. Baal is an interesting target since the wave mechanics have a way of evening the playing field a little bit. That said, a single-target build will take substantially longer than strong AoE chars of course. The thing about Baal runs is that the XP gain is set, so it's very easy to figure out how long it will take you to get to the final level.

Using Nanomist's XP Tables for leveling 95-99 on Baal runs (p8/p3 until 98, then p1/p3 for 98-99):

2:30 minute runs: 289.55 hrs
3:00 minute runs: 347.46 hrs
3:30 minute runs: 405.37 hrs
4:00 minute runs: 463.28 hrs

This is a high estimate, since lower levels can be modified to run Ventar or Lister and leave out Baal for some increased efficiency, but it's the last level that kills you anyways, taking up ~75% of the total time needed from 95-99. Keep in mind this is "only" for 95-99, so there is the rest of the journey as well, which will be much quicker with an AoE caster than say a Conc barb. That shouldn't make a huge difference on total time invested, but may tamper with the frustration levels. For perspective to those that don't know, at least a few of the untwinked 99ers have come in around 350 hours for completion time (they are all strong AoE characters).

I would love to see some (more) wacky builds make it to 99, and I plan on doing one myself at some point. Just make sure you understand the time investment so that you don't end up hating your loveable fuzzy sorc or shockwave mauler when they aren't as quick as their buddies.
Well, another plan of mine is to approach it a little differently and get several characters to 95+, preferably 97 or even 98, and then from that point onwards see if I still feel like getting one to 99 and which one would be the best candidate. The good thing about that tactic is that I can trick myself into believing it's 'just one more level to go' :).
Melee single-target/non-AoE attack options definitely can work. But as @Pb_pal correctly noted, they will generally take a little longer.

In addition to those two, Strijdje's Lycan was the wolfbarb (without teleport), and DC's Tesladin Nikola also didn't have teleport (although zeal isn't really single target, it was basically melee playstyle).

It's actually something I worried about a bit in drafting the Compendium: the focus on "efficiency" could be interpreted as meaning other options can't work. Which is obviously untrue. It's really about putting in the time, which will be longer for less efficient builds.

That said, having now done this a couple times, I can't imagine myself sticking with it from the start with a single-target attacker (although maybe for Nihl on the last level). But that's just me ;) I'm looking forward to seeing more characters, whether casters or less common options for the 99er journey.

Edit: to the earlier question by @T72on1 - I think it's helpful to have this here, as I can update that part of the Compendium to reflect this discussion (and maybe just link down to a later post and dozen or so that follow for more expansive discussion of other options).
Several people mentioned single target attackers ... I can't even begin to imagine doing this with a Conc Barb or something similar right from the start to the very end. But I had builds in mind that kill really fast and often also attack multiple enemies at a time, like Fury or Zeal.

Someone doing this with a pure passive Zon using only daggers and normal attack would earn eternal glory x300 though ...
I know a few players (not members of this forum) who love their pitzerkers so much they are in the late 90's now by merely doing pits and chaos at players 1 :p Perhaps I can convince them to do a final push at Nilathak ;) (or just finishing their chaos runs off by taking down the big D "he is not efficient for TC87" - they chant). A concentrate/berserker barb would be, next to a dual dream bear sorc, the only single target build I would go for in this insane challenge.
Mate, that is basically half of this forum :p
 
Originally posted April 2016 by PhinesB in Untwinked Level 99 Progress Thread, Revenge of the 99ers

@T72on1: as coju said, if you plan on doing lots of LK runs with a character, it is much easier to avoid hitting any WPs in A3 except LK (I've never had issues with also hitting Trav). That way when you start an LK run in town, you have only one option for WP to click to get you to LK. It makes a pretty significant difference, especially if you're not super precise with the mouse like me.

Sorry for not listing all the details for Mercy's journey. I am SC with extended stash. I stopped picking up green sabres and double axes at some point in Hell, so I'm not counting total number of S/Us. Flavie report says I have found 139 S/Us. I am not counting total play time, and I've added 4 deaths in LK to my one in Normal.
 
Originally posted February 2017 by pharphis in 2017 Winter RFL Sign-Up and Running Thread

If you keep running it, and don't already use the tele trick, I'd highly recommend it. It gives you 50% further teleports iirc.

what to do:

1) tele in direction you want to go
2a) if tele left, open up stat screen and mouse will move to center of screen.
2b) if tele right, open up skill screen, mouse will move to center of screen
3) continue to hold down tele and move cursor to corner of screen like before

This will make your teles faster. It requires some muscle memory, is somewhat tricky and takes practice for any map to know when to stop but it will save you several seconds for longer paths. (pit, nihl, maus, countess, andy...)
 
Originally posted January 2018 by ffs in Untwinked Level 99 Progress Thread, Revenge of the 99ers

Well, after all her recent success, and some 10 hours of running after her initial "artifical" couple of deaths when aggressively stress testing Nihl runs -- some bad news for HelpYourself. Right after she made the first 10% and could thus theoretically lose the full XP amount on death, the D2 gods decided to teach her a very painful lesson. :/

While teleporting through Halls of Pain, she suddenly stopped, due to the cursor hovering over a poppable tomb. That wouldn't have been so bad, had she not been next to a Might pack, similarly to what I've described in the previous post. I was too slow to hit escape or teleport away, and she died. Well I facepalmed in light of that absurd death, but I was thinking it was close to the WP and there were only a few mobs, allowing for easy corpse recovery. So I bought back the Merc, put on her recovery gear, hit the waypoint and started to calmly make my way to her corpse.

Can you see the mistake hidden in the last sentence?

I didn't take Delirium away from Merc. Making my way slowly and safely to the corpse, the Merc was engaged in combat constantly and he had all the time in the world to trigger the previously discussed Delirium/Jab bug. That's exactly what he did, and as a consequence the game crashed. (I had already understood that the longer he fights mobs the more likely it is to trigger, and I adjusted my play at times. For example I made a habit of clearing Nihl's platform in case of a good drop, so the game doesn't crash while I get there and pick it up due to him fighting leftover monsters. However, obviously didn't think about it in this situation.)

At that moment I didn't know exactly what this meant. I noticed that when this crash occurs, the progress upon restarting was as is if the last run had not taken place. Now of course it wouldn't have been fair play if the death was not recorded at all (probably I should then have died on purpose in the next run and recovered the corpse, to have her progress "as it should be"?). But the other option I thought of was much worse, namely loss of gear, and I was pretty nervous about that as you can imagine.

When I restarted the game, neither of those things had happened. She was naked, the corpse before her had her main gear, and her corpse recovery gear was in her stash. However, a full 29m XP was lost. :(

Of course pretty bummed by this setback, especially since corpse recovery would have been easy, and with that only some 2-2.5 hours of running lost. But I guess the bright side is she didn't lose any gear.

Anyway, I thought I'd share this in detail, hoping it will be helpful for others experiencing this Delirium bug. Better make damn sure to take Delirium away from the Merc for corpse recovery. ;)

Her "nonbinding goal" to finish by the end of February is of course even more ambitious now. We'll see how it goes, might still happen. After a brief pause she's now back to running with another lesson learned. :)
 
Originally posted January 2018 by PhineasB in Untwinked Level 99 Progress Thread, Revenge of the 99ers

ffs said: " Well, I didn't notice Nihl rolled the aura and had honestly been pushing too hard in an effort to make up for the XP loss caused by the Delirium crash. Playing for too long at a time even though concentration decreased noticeably sometimes. But still I wondered how it could have been avoided even with full concentration. Well, I finally realized that I shouldn't just "be ready" to S&E once entering Hall of Vaught, but actually have my finger resting on ESC when teleporting to Nihl. "

I will include this in the 99er compendium. It's definitely a good idea for Nihl runs but, as you said, something that isn't necessarily obvious. I actually did it for CS runs with Hiatus too, and it saved her a nasty death during 97-98.

Also, congrats on the progress and for overcoming those mishaps!

I think the point about playing too long at a time is also an important one. That's why I rarely played more than 30 minutes straight without at least getting up from my desk for a bit (that, and at least trying to somewhat salvage my posture :rolleyes:).
 
Hey phineas, thanks again for this excellent resource. I was collecting some exp posts/resources from the old forum as well, and saw you already had most all of them here. I might suggest including ffs's lvl 97 hdin numbers from this post.

Also wanted to ask. I was interested in starting a char in classic and converting to LoD in hell in order to save nm ancients (and then likely just twinking the character like normal after reaching hell). Really just for something sort of novel (for me) to try. I remember yng discussing this back in the ut99er thread on the old site, and also see that corrupted mentioned it in his post you've quoted here.
Lastly it's possible to save your NM ancients by either (self)MP'ing or starting your char in classic and converting it in act 3 hell
Does anyone know of more details or resources on how this works? I guess its a low time time investment if I try it and mess it up. But was curious how this conversion to LoD functions in general, as well as what it is that would make you need to get to a3 hell before converting. Sounds interesting.
 
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Originally posted May 2019 by ffs in Untwinked Level 99 Progress Thread, Revenge of the 99ers

Lucid has made it to 97 (and got the first couple of million towards 98 from testing several XP strategies). LCS:
1597984871085.png
I used his first respec for some min-maxing, and switched to this setup for full CS runs:
Shako (PTopaz)
Enigma
Hoto 40@
35 Spirit
Mara's 24@
Dwarf Star
FCR/res ring
Magefist
Arachnid Mesh
WT

Merc (HF): Insight (eth GPA), ebug Fortitude, And's (cold dmg/29 FR)

Inventory: 2x PCombat skiller, 1x OA skiller, Gheed's, various life/res SCs

Minor spoiler: He did not get the particular rune drop he was hoping for from RFL (Ber for Merc's CoH). But I needed to power up the Merc so I decided to go for the tested and trusted Andy + ebug Fortitude setup. Used his second socket quest for a 10/26 Andy's (punching in a cold dmg/29 FR jewel in it for now), Hel'ed out the Stone and made this in a 1117 defense base:
1597984774614.png
I also stashed a corpse recovery kit now consisting of Shako, Spirit, Viper, Rising Sun, stat/res rings and Hoto... of which I made a second one that got a sexy 40@ (and is eth of course :p).
1597984822348.png
Apart from the fact that no Ber dropped, rune drop quality was actually quite good – but that will have to wait for a couple of days until RFL is over. ;) Best non-rune drops from the last stretch to 97 included a 38% ED RJoF, an Offensive Aura skiller (which is in use) and a 14/30 Shimmering GC of Sustenance.

With drops out of the way, I was curious as to how different run types compare regarding XP gain. In short, I confirmed what @PhineasB had concluded for his runs with Phaedrus. I tested rather short samples but tried to keep an eye on a similar distribution of XP shrines, with these results:

Code:
P8 2 Seal: 5.883.900 / hour
97-98 projected: 45h

P7/P7 Diablo: 6.134.573 per hour
97-98 projected: 43h

P8/P7 Diablo: 6.967.210 / hour
97-98 projected: 38h

P8/P8 Diablo: 6.406.326.66 / hour
97-98 projected: 42h

P1/P7 Diablo: 4.624.848 / hour
97-98 projected: 57h

So indeed P8/P7 beats out Gripphon runs, and switching the player settings – while annoying – is probably worth the hassle over straight P7 or straight P8 runs.

Generally by now I think Hammerdin could be the fastest untwinked 99 option overall, sub 250h should be possible without much difficulty for Lucid. Sorc going Blizzard @ CS into Lightning @ Nihl may be faster in theory, but her performance depends much more on gear. Hammerdin needs only runewords and basic S&Us (nothing like Griffon's/Fathom) to get pretty close to his twinked counterparts, not even skillers are really required since they don't increase damage as much as for other builds... Overall pretty shocked to see how easy he is to level to be honest. :eek:
 
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@Luhkoh that is definitely an option. I thought briefly about going that route with my Druid, but ended up going with a tourney instead (giving up 60M XP in the process because he managed to make it through unscathed :) ). My recollectsion is the stash is smaller, etc., but otherwise wouldn't be too different untwinked.

But if I ever do another SC 99er (twinked or not), I would go that route just for the extra 20M XP shaved off from 98-99. Twinking could happen once the conversion to expansion happens in Hell
 
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@PhineasB ah ok excellent. I did manage to find some more information on the process. Here and here were the most helpful link I dug up. Apparently the game checks whether or not you've beaten 10 acts before it will place you in hell (hence have to beat hell a2 before converting), but if you do get correctly placed in hell, you keep the a1 and a2 progress.

Also I didn't realize at first that I was commenting in your archives thread. Let me know if I'm clogging it up :). And yeah seems a bit tougher now that I know you have to get through a1 and a2 in hell. That would be a bit more annoying than just through nm with an undergeared and underleveled hdin. Might still go for it though. Not sure if it will end up being worth it in the case of a twinked 99er, but anything that takes time out of that 98-99 grind is a psychological boost imo.

Did you ever consider adjusting the 98-99 times in the compendium and adding in that little tip for a naj's body recovery kit (discussed here)? Not trying to push the points, and if you don't think they're good additions, no need to add, but thought I'd ask :).
 
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Definitely planning on a refresh when @Kinkara pings. I had missed Naj suggestion but it’s definitely an option. The main issue is risk of second death due to lower resists and FHR, but balanced against trade off for walking for sure. There a few other pieces I had planned to update so this will be good comprehensive overhaul. No pressure Kinkara 🙂
 
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Haha sounds good to me! I use that naj's option on all my twinked characters since I don't like tying up two enigmas for the character. Usually just throw a kiras, viper, and a bunch of fcr/resist jewelry in with it, as well as a cta for swap, and have had very comfortable corpse recoveries so far with it. Agreed it's not perfect, but I know I have had much much more success with it than with walking.
 
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