TC3 Hunting Tournament - Sign-Up and Running Thread [by T72on1]

Pb_pal

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This tournament has already ended. It was originally posted by @T72on1 on Mar 29, 2016.
(link to original thread on diabloii.net)


Welcome to my first little attempt at a tournament: the TC3 Hunting Tournament !!! In this thread players sign-up and talk about hunting TC3s. We had a little pre-tournament discussion about this, and it seems like we'll have 4 participants, but obviously the tournament is open to anyone, and it would be awesome if we would have more people enter.

What is the TC3 Hunting Tournament?

The TC3 Hunting Tournament is a contest where we try to farm as many different TC3 items as possible during a 2 week period, within a maximum amount of time for each character. Score will solely depend on the number of different TC3 items found. This wiki page contains a list of all unique and set TC3 items. All items can be dropped by Normal Andariel (a lot of them even from lower targets), except for the 4 items with a qlvl of >16. If you are seeking for advice to increase your efficiency at tracking down those TC3s, check out the TC3 hunting FAQ draft.


When is the TC3 Hunting Tournament?

Starts on Saturday 2th April at 00:00, ends on Friday 15th April 11:59pm.


Rules and info

1.
Areas we run are: all areas up to Normal Halls of the Dead level 3; this includes the Sewers level 1 - 3 and Dry Hills; reason for this is that I want to keep it low-profile, but want to enable the cube, to turn those chipped and flawed topazes into perfect ones ;)

2. Only version 1.13+ of the game.

3. HC or SC

4. Untwinked; muling items from the character to an external stash (GoMule or Atma) is allowed though

5. MP game to reset a map is allowed

6. Player setting is free; no increasing the /p setting just for chests or other poppables though

7. Max amount spent with one character is 15 hours; you can however enter the contest with multiple characters

8. This is just meant as a small, low profile challenge. There are no prizes, except for eternal glory if you manage to find all items one can find within' these areas (20 items); alternatively if all participants want this, I wouldn't mind having a small prize pool from the TC3s we'll find, but that would require for everyone to have a legit trade profile here

9. Every different (e.g. not already found) TC3 item grants you 1 point; readouts of all items can be posted here after the event; in case of a tie, the person who finds the highest total amount of TC3 items, wins

10. Gambling is allowed. TC3 items found while gambling, follow the same rules as TC3 items that drop

11. Reset at Akara is allowed


Scoring

As has already been stated, every different TC3 item grants 1 point. These are all TC3s available:



Tancred's Hobnails, Sander's Paragon and Vidala's Ambush can't drop in the selected areas. Blinkbat's Form can only drop from certain superuniques in act 2, as well as most bosses / champs there. Bane Ash can also drop this item.

Results

In a lot of tournaments there is a supervisor, to whom you can send your results after the tournament period over. Since this is such a low-profile tournament, I suggest all participants just post their result (number of different TC3 items, total number of TC3 items and item readouts (edit: or screen shots)) in this thread, but not until the ending time of the tournament has passed for all participants. So people from Australia and New Zealand will have to wait a bit longer than us Euro people, and those two groups have to wait for people from US and Canada before posting any results :).

Please don't post any info on how many TC3s you have found before the tournament is over, as that would ruin a lot of the fun.


Participants

Aslearr
Brak
Fabian
Gripphon
hackedagainanda
NagisaFurukawa
NanoMist
Noodle
Pb_pal
Silver Moon
Southpaw8668
Swamigoon
T72on1
Tarantella



Post any suggestions or questions you might have.

Good luck to everyone !!!

PS Post format shamelessly copy / pasted from @Gripphon's Winter 2016 Zodthon.

Edit: results can be found here.
 
I will be running a HC Holy Fire Paladin for this.

Tactic will be to rush to the cube in Act 2 as fast as possible, on the highest possible player setting where I still kill fast (given that it is untwinked, this will probably be quite low). Then farm Andariel to gain levels but mostly because she has a very high chance to drop Nagelring. For mf purposes, this is best done on /p1, but if I can get her down fast on a higher player setting as well, that might be the better option to gain some more levels faster.

After that I'll mainly be running Coldcrow on /p1, since she can drop all TC3s up to qlvl 7. I might do some other areas / bosses as well for some of the higher qlvl TC3 items, or because I feel I need to gain some more levels.

Ideally I'll find a Scepter with +Holy Fire early on and Vigor later on (or with both, but that will require quite some luck). Gull on switch would be awesome obviously, as well as 2 Nagelrings. 2os helm and 3os breasplate stuffed with topazes. Boots with frw for sure, extra mf would be nice. Rest of the gear to increase killing speed, and ideally with extra mf. Certainly when running Coldcrow, defensive stats shouldn't really matter. Charms mainly focuses on frw and mf.

That's the theory ... I'll have to see how it turns out in practice ;)
Well fine. I can commit 15 hours to this I'm sure :p

I'll be in with a Fire Trapper. My plan will be similar to yours, although more loose. I'm just going to run where I feel like and see what happens. :)

Worth to note as well that Bane Ash in Act 1 can drop Blinkbat's (AFAIK).

EDIT: What about gambling? If we gamble a TC3 does that count towards our score, or only those dropped from monsters?
Blinkbat's can indeed drop. I just noticed that in the TC3 hunting FAQ I linked to.

Gambling ... I'd be fine with that. Then again, I have never done any low level gambling, so I'm not sure what the odds would be for gambling a TC3. But if the odds aren't too much out of control (we won't have that much gold anyway, right?), it would be fine with me.

Glad to hear you are joining this, @Pb_pal :).
T72on1 said:
Gambling ... I'd be fine with that. Then again, I have never done any low level gambling, so I'm not sure what the odds would be for gambling a TC3. But if the odds aren't too much out of control (we won't have that much gold anyway, right?), it would be fine with me.
The gambling odds and 1/2000 for a Unique (.05%) and 2/2000 for a Set (.1%), so not great. Gambled items are lvl = clvl -4/+5, so your best best is to gamble for specific items when your clvl is (qlvl of desired item) +5, to ensure the maximum chance.

As you said, we won't be swimming in gold, and there's a good chance nobody will roll a S/U on a TC3 in that short of a timeframe. Personally, I would allow it as you'll be sinking time into that instead of killing monsters so there shouldn't really be an advantage. My thinking was to gamble daggers for a Gull, but now that I think about it, it's probably not a great use of your time in this circumstance.
Sign me up!

Also, gambling for those TC3's that can't be dropped would be the end game for someone that managed to find everything else before the time limit.

As for my build - leaning toward fire trapper but I haven't ruled out sorceress yet.
NanoMist said:
Sign me up!
Cool !!! I will :).

NanoMist said: Also said:
True. I'll add gambling as 'rule #10'.
I'll sign up for sure. I'm thinking a Zeal Paladin might work for me. I can always reset his skills and turn him into a hammerdin somewhere down the road. Glad to be part of this :)
I'm also in as well with a Summoner Druid to mix things up. This is the only tournament I've entered where summoned wolves and a poison creeper are viable. [emoji1] Good luck everyone, we're gonna need it!

Edit: The wolves are killing too slowly and lag behind too often. I'm going to enter with a Holy Fire Paladin as well.

Second Edit: Someone mentioned a horking Barbarian. I've got to try this with double swing as his main attack skill, since I won't make it to Frenzy where it would be worthwhile I'll look at maxing Find Item instead to aid my topaz collection. This should be the last time I change my mind. [emoji6]
@Silver Moon Cool, I'll add you right away !!! You mention respecs, interesting. I agree, respecs should be allowed. Not sure if you'll reach high enough a level to make a Hammerdin a strong and fast option though.

@Southpaw8668 Nice, I'll add you in a second. I actually thought about the Poison Creeper Druid, could be interesting. Spirit Wolves are worthless in my opinion. Feral Rage adds frw, so that could be interesting.

@helvete provided some tips in the TC3 hunting discussion thread. I'll add them here, in case someone missed them there:
- Assassin speedrunners kill baal in around 90 minutes, so 900 minutes should be plenty of time if spent right
- Seeing how the cube is allowed, buy magic wands and cube with 3 chipped gems. You'll have a LOT of money, which could gamble you those hobnails in the end
- The cube could also produce high damage polearms from (any belt)+(any diamond)+(any kris)+(any staff)
- "Leaf" runewords +3 fire skills counts for Holy Fire and Wake of Fire
- Act 2 vendors can sell magic gloves and boots with MF
- Don't cube topazes past flawed; too much time spent
- If you see a pike in the gamble screen, go for it and let your merc own /players7 for the remainder of the tournament
- Bhop scepters with +holy fire from Akara
- "Find Item" works on Coldcrow and Bone Ash - this might be worth choosing barbarian for with the right map
^^ I was meaning much later in time after the tournament is over. I am lacking characters and will need a hammerdin one day, so I figured I would use him as a pure zealot for the tournament and respec him in a few months when I have some decent gear. I am excited to start hunting TC3's in a couple days!

Edit: The Auradin seems like a good idea. Although I will stick with Zeal for originality points and also to be the only player not using a fire based skill. My plan is pretty basic: I will run coldcrow, rakanishu, griswold, andariel and then maybe the sewers and repeat. I realize it's not the most time effective way of gathering TC3s, but I like multiple enemies in a row instead of just one. Vigor will come in pretty handy :D
Count me in! Holy Fire here we come :)
@Silver Moon Heh ok, silly of me :oops:. It's a good idea actually, as I still lack a Paladin in my HC collection. I'd better come up with a universal name in that case though, not something like TC_Three ...

I'll still keep the rule of allowing a respec, if that's ok with everyone. Don't really see it being a means to exploit something, or an unfair advantage.

@hackedagainanda Cool !!! Added you to the list. That's 6 people in, still waiting for @Noodle ... :rolleyes:

Btw, I added screenshots as a means to post your results, instead of readouts only.

Less than 39 hours to go (for me) until the tournament ...
Not wishing to sound overly competitive but would the 15 hours start from the time you first click on the game icon or from the first time you leave the Rogue Camp? :)
Neither. From the moment your character is created and enters the Rogue Camp, standing next to Warriv. At least that's my initial reaction, because frankly I had not given it that much thought yet :).

But obviously it doesn't matter that much. If having the 15 hours start only when you leave the Rogue Camp means you join the tournament as well, that's ok with me ;).
I've never played for 15 hours solid before.

Can I drink as much tea as I like to keep me going? :)
This looks interesting, looking forward to seeing what you get out of this :p Have fun competitors!
T72on1 said:
@hackedagainanda Cool !!! Added you to the list. That's 6 people in, still waiting for @Noodle ... :rolleyes:

...
Oh, I'm definitely in! I haven't farmed Act 1 with a Holy Fire paladin since the 1.09 days, so I'm looking forward to it. I've added myself to the list in your first post.
@Tarantella Yes, that 15 hours is the max you can play over a 2 week period. If you want to play more, you can enter with a new character. When I was young, I used to play a lot, but I don't think I've ever played 15 hours straight, not even close. So I take it you're in ? ;):cool:

@Noodle Aha, so you are using your haxor mod powers to invade my post ... ?! Fair enough, and cool you're into this ! I'm gonna edit my post again though: I had put all participants in alphabetical order, and the structured person in me wants to keep it that way, if you don't mind.
 
I'm up for this if only to hone some speed skills.

So the 900 minute countdown carries on ticking between one Andy run and the next?
Cool, I'll add you to the list as well !!! And yes.

Any idea which character or build you'll be running?
Might try a sorceress.

Do we have to stick with the same map we start with?
No, rerolling is allowed.

Less than four hours for those of us in Europe, a few hours more if you're across the ocean. Good luck everyone :).
I haven't played D2 in what feels like years and have no idea where to even begin with this... or where my game folder is anymore.

(Sign me up and stuff. o7)
Nice, another participant !!! I'll add you right away. Good luck !
Amatolle (a HC Amazon) made an early start and reached level 8 exiting the game precisely 21 minutes later. Now throwing gambled pila with cold or poison damage and with a jewel of envy in her cap Amatolle completed the first quest and found the entrance to Coldcrow's den.

1606485338921.png


Does time handling external stash count towards game time?
I would think not, as the last RFO did not count it.

There's still some time before I can start, but good luck to everyone that have started or yet to start.

Also, I'm changing my mind - will go sorc. I haven't played a sorc in a long time.
Right on! Time to get started. Best of luck to everyone who signed up. Looking forward to see how many TC3s we can come up with.
@Tarantella A jewel of envy already, nice!

I agree with @NanoMist about managing external stash.

I'll only get to play a bit or not at all with Holy_Guacamole, my Paladin, this weekend. Good luck everyone!
Good luck all! This will be interesting to follow.

Besides seeing a lot TC3s, I'm expecting you to take care that you will find nice twinking stuff. Early areas are wonderful for those. Keep an eye especially for jewels, charms, class-specific items with nice +skills to early skills etc. (Or at least collect enough Envy jools for the rest of your life ;) )
Regarding handling external stash counting toward game time, I want to share some info and opinions on that. When I had that problem for first RFO, I asked opinions from other people what to do. And it pretty much depended on who I asked. Some said it is normal and expected that whenever you do something game related (even using external stash), that should be counted toward game time. Other said it does not make sense to them to count using external stash toward playing time cause then you don't play the game at all.

Fair to say I was easily in the second group of people saying I indeed am not playing the game when using external stash, why to count it toward playing time then? Logic is simple, but there are consequences to every decision. That is the downside of being host of tournament. Maybe you do make a rules, but not everyone will be happy with them. Since in using external stash toward playing time is like a split decision, whatever you chose, someone might be unhappy about it.

Be warned that using RFO model of not counting the use of external stash toward playing time easily leads to, what some people will call time abuse. For example, I myself asked should I actually count toward running time whenever I'm in game, but NOT killing council? Like say when going to repair armor or when visiting ingame stash to drop items, but NOT proceeding to run that time, but simply to drop goodies there and then save/exit. Should that count toward playing time too or not? Normally, people might say it makes no sense to not count that toward playing time since you are in fact in game and playing... but still not running the target in that particular case. And here now comes the abuse part. If someone was really complaining about me not counting visiting stash and dropping items toward playing time since I am in game (but not running), then I simply wouldn't even visit ingame stash, but would instead go drop all items from character to gomule to squeeze as much running in time limit as I can.

And now people saying using external stash shouldn't count toward playing time probably wouldn't complain. But having said all that, is it really different thing using ingame stash to drop items or external stash to drop items, or its the same thing? If first one should count toward playing time, then player could simply always use external stash which doesn't count toward playing time with same result as if he used ingame stash and DIDN'T count it toward playing time.

That is the abuse part and a problem with limited playing system. Maybe it is not that important for this tc3 tournament, but I wanted to share the consequences and philosophy behind "external stash not counting toward playing time". When making rules, you must ask yourself how other players can abuse them to their advantage, and I gave comparison between ingame and external stash which I don't think are really different as explained. So, you will either allow using ingame stash not counting toward playing time, or players will simply use gomule instead to save time.

And my suggestion would be to count toward playing time EVERYTHING related to using character, even when using his external stash. Otherwise someone clever might find a way to abuse it to his advantage. Well, not exactly "abuse", but he will have advantage over other players who find that practice to be cheap (lazy ones I don't really count :p). That kind of model I'm thinking about applying to next RFO cause even though I'm not happy that using external stash should count toward playing time, I also think consequences are simply too ugly and it is fair to count everything to prevent any kind of "abuse".

In other words, if someone wants to roll maps for this tourney, it should count toward playing time. If using internal/external stash, same story. But, it is up to you to decide what kind of model do you want for your tourney. I lived with my unhappy choice and even saw other people use it to their advantage, but fact is some people find that unfair and silly. Other might think the same when counting using external stash toward playing time, but oh well, that's life. ^^
Sign me up also. Yet another Druid summoner for me, I think.
I have no issues with external stash counting towards time (or not), especially in this tourney where there isn't much to be found. Heck, I'm 3 hours in and my in game stash is half empty. :(
Wow, it's hard to believe I put in 7 hours and change today and have found a ton of S/U items. Too bad it isn't the TC6&9 find tournament, as I've found many more of those particular ones. To include a few lowbie runes along the way.
MF currently at 163 when Guard makes the kill shot. Andariel has been our primary target as the others haven't dropped anything good and we've really ended up with a lovely Catacombs map layout to boot.
Took our one reset and switched from Find Item/Double Swing build, which was useless to a Concentration build with shield and duel leech crystal sword.
This sounded fun to me so I started a character earlier in the week, not intending to really compete. But I'm restarting now and will try to finish it "for real". It's a fun challenge.
As a challenge it's certainly got the grey matter going.

Amatolle reached the cube at 2 hrs 15 minutes delayed by Tower runs and dropped her first TC3 within the following 15 minutes. Tried imbuing boots
1606485387338.png

And also gambling for boots and gloves. The team is currently maxing out with 201 mf total after 6 hours play. Stuck with the original map and counted extended stash time.
Started the char today to try this out. Since I started char before announcing in here I might play (didn't intend to, just tried to see how it is / good old times, but might finish it), I'm perfectly fine to not be allowed to participate since I don't plan on restarting char. But might share the journey nevertheless.
I did some theorycrafting about this on my own, and even though there are guides that tell you what to do and how, I wanna share my own findings and reasoning to help people running for this specific event.

What special targets to run?
Mother of all questions for this. Strongest targets include:

Coldcrow which is probably best target overall due to excellent dropping chances, but downside is she can drop items up to qlvl 7, which means she can't drop 3 unique items, death's guard items and 3 rare set items.

Andariel on higher player settings (quest bugged) is obviously decent target, especially cause with some MF it takes like ~50 runs at average to farm Nagelring, and that is what you want from her mostly.

Rakinishu is decent target, roughly 30% of Coldcrow, but can also drop death's guard set items. He is very easy to get to since he is usually close to waypoint. Or not if you are not lucky.

Griswold is also like Rakinishu, but slightly better. He and Rakinishu together make like 2/3 of Coldcrow, but also drops death's guard. Good thing is there is also boss next to Griswold usually, that has 3 times worse drop chances, but still decent target. Rakinishu + Griswold + that boss combo is pretty good.

Bone Ash can drop all unique tc3 items, cannot drop all set tc3 items, but also his drop chances are ~3.5 times worse than from Rakinishu.

Pitspawn Fouldog has decent drop chances, but is too much off to be probably worth it. He is in Jail level 2, and waypoint is in jail level 1. I'm not sure is he ever worth the effort.

What else to run?
Generally bosses from Blood Moor till Outer Cloister have ok-ish drop chances for tc3. Bosspacks after that get much worse and they are terrible at dropping tc3 in Catacombs for example. Also bosses in allowed act 2 areas are terrible for tc3, there is only xp which you probably want to get from Andy anyway. Bosses in Coldcrow cave are also good targets for example, but still slightly worse than Coldcrow herself ans she should be the focus. But kill stuff along the way.

What to pay attention to?
Pay close attention to location of shrines is my advice. When you choose combo of targets you are gonna kill, try to fast check shrines close to waypoint seeking for gem shrines. Pick up every single topaz type gem. Chipped topazes cube to flawed ofc and so on, in general make sure to use that gem shrine to up your topazes.

My own strategy is to make preliminary MF gear with chipped/flawed topazes and shrine the rest up to flawless/perfect to make final MF gear. But, you must continuously check for gem shrines to be worth it. They spawn roughly once per 34 shrines as per my own data from when I shrined 700 amethysts. Maybe it sounds annoying thing to do, but once you make that dual ptopaz helm or some strong MF armor, it will be worth it.

MF gear?
Strong MF gloves are very easy to shop at Elzix. Gamble for MF boots, at least I did for mine. Also not hard to do. MF rings are not easy to find, but you probably want dual Nagelring which will make over 100 Andy runs at average to get. 2os helm is for topazes, and well question is Stealth vs 3os topaz armor. Making your way to 100 MF is not that hard, unless you are unlucky with mf rings.

Gambling
Speaking of gambling, I find it to be worth gambling for boots (exactly boots) to have a chance at scoring lucky. But, set boots are qlvl 27, so you need good level to not have terrible chances to gamble something. Leather armors are generally tough costumers to find, and those might be worth to gamble for lucky shot. And also gambling caps could be ok idea maybe. But, I think boots and leather armors have advantage for obvious reason.

That's it. Hopefully helpful info is in there. My usual strategy is to focus either on Rakinishu + Coldcrow and bosses around, or Tristram + Andy. But, have your own farming strategy.
@Gripphon - Thanks for your insight as I have decided to buff up my MF and run Andy primarily. However after reading your feedback I feel that I might have better luck obtaining those elusive, missing TC3 items that Andy doesn't seem to want to drop. She definitely has her favorites that she likes to cough up and the majority of those being TC6 and up. I going to try Coldcrow for awhile and see what happens, hopefully I have a good map from the waypoint to her favorite little corner.
 
Thanks for the knowledge Gripphon. I found a 24% Nagelring on my first Andariel kill, so I guess I got really lucky. That should serve me well in looking for TC3s. Time to go hunt down Coldcrow and hope to get lucky again.
Something funny I just realized. So, Bone Ash can drop all tc3 uniques, but Andy can't drop Blinkbat's. First I didn't pay attention, but then it got to my mind - wtf? That should mean Bone Ash is higher level than Andariel. Checked on wiki and voila. Bone Ash is indeed level 17 while Andariel is only level 12. Guy must be insanely strong etc.
Running Andy now. Not great results so far, but some.
Excellent post/guide by Gripphon. I also went to Elzix for my MF gloves/boots - got these very quickly. Running P5 Andariel ad nauseum, as my run times are fast.

Only thing I have to add is that leveling wise, 24 -26 is very reachable in the limited areas of Act 2. Mlvls of boss packs in the allowed areas before Far Oasis are 17 or 18, depending on monster type. Exp. penalty begins at 23/24, but at P8 setting, Exp. is still decent until maybe 26. Depending on your build and MF targets, leveling this far may be excessive or too time consuming, but is something for everyone to consider. Of course, your build would have to be able to run these areas effectively at P8, but there is a respec should you need it. ;)
Thanks for the extra tips everyone !!! And good to see everyone is having a good time with this tournament.

I only managed to play for a bit over an hour on Saturday, ended the session with killing Andariel. Really need frw boots, I should do some dedicated shopping instead of just checking the shops whenever I make a towntrip. Will rush for Radament and then the cube next time (hopefully today), then it will be either some more leveling up in Act 2 or running Andy. Once she has coughed up those Nagelrings, I'm switching to Coldcrow.

O yes, seeing an entire group of fallen drop down from one pulse of Holy Fire is really entertaining. Too bad the pulse is only every 2 seconds, which is quite long. One second would have been a lot better. Also, currently I can only do that on /p1.

One thing that is frightening with Holy Fire, is a LE enemy, since the aura sets off the sparks, even without you actually attacking it. Those few LE's I have encountered so far were by far my most difficult fights.

@Gripphon I'll add you to the list, wouldn't know why I should exclude your character, just because you only announced it afterwards.

@Swamigoon @Fabian Very glad to have you. I'll add you right away.

Good luck everyone !!!

O yes, one more thing. I understand the reasoning of @Gripphon about time spent on external stash, and want to thank you for taking the time to thoroughly explain it. For this particular tournament, which should have quite limited time spent on muling anyway I think, I don't think it's much of an issues, so I'd like to keep it so that the time spent on an external stash doesn't count on playing time. I count on everyone's fair play so this doens't get abused.
The thing about Bone Ash is not that he/she can drop Bane Ash or vice versa if you've done several hundred runs by now :confused: but that by being level 17 he can drop item level 16 jewelry with improved magic find stats. This is handy if you've not reached the character level to cube such items or even reached the cube itself. He is also only a short fixed sprint from the waypoint for stamina purposes so maybe worth running before taking that boosted first Andariel drop.

Another thing to note is the item level cap for shopping in act 1 and 2 being 12 and 20. This means you can't shop 20 FRW boots. Not sure if you can drop them in the restricted game area as rares or blues either. The only option here maybe is gambling at -4 to +5 CL or imbuing at +4 CL.

20 FRW boots with 25mf would be a fine item to gamble if you were thinking of extending the character beyond into the rest of the game at a later date.
For additional info, affix lvl of 20 FRW is 22 meaning you can gamble them. Also note that 26-35mf affix on boots is lvl 26 meaning in theory you can gamble those too, but you need really good level to have meaningful chance at doing so.
Gambling frw + MF boots would be awesome indeed, but tough to do.

I've just reached level 24 on Andy. So far found 4 10+ MF rings from her not being Nagels, and those can drop only from lvl 12+ monsters. I'm still kinda combining Andy and Coldcrow since Andy drops gold worthly items for gambling + leveling + chance at improving MF further etc. I always kill Rakinishu too since he is next to a waypoint. Didn't mention it, but I'm running with fire druid.
Switching back to Andy as my prime honey pot, as I've ran a few dozen runs each of Coldcrow, Tristram and Bone Ash with not a single S/U dropped. I've personally had Bone Ash drop the elusive Bane Ash staff during a different tournament but it was the first and only time I killed him with that hero. Not sure if he has a first time kill setting that greatly boosts your chances. If you're still looking for the magic FRW and AR combo I've found 12+ Hrasus' set belts and boots from Andy. I've gathered she really has something for that starter set. As stated by others she really likes the Nagel ring as well. Now running with twin 28s. [emoji2]

Edit: It's looking like I will finish this barbarian up way ahead of time, so I might start a nova or fireball sorceress to see how she does with the Andy runs.
Finally some decent time in from me. 3 hours and 30 minutes to be precise, so I'm at 4 hours 45 minutes in total.

Rushed to the cube after killing Andariel, then killed Radament, then back to the Halls of the Dead to level up to 18 to be able to shop for and equip a Scepter with +Vigor to use on switch. In retrospect that time was waisted, as Andariel runs give really good xp as well.

It took me a while to roll a decent Andariel map, and I couldn't bring myself to reroll more to get a really good map. I probably should have, but I was too eager to get the ball rolling. Also, at the end of the session, when checking for Rakanishu and Coldcrow, it turned out I have very good maps for those, so all in all I'm happy with my maps.

I only could afford a +1 Vigor Scepter early on, so my travel time to Andariel was too slow to my taste. On the upside, killing her while staying safe myself went really well on /p8, and I quickly leveled up. My Paladin is currently level 24, with almost maxed Holy Fire and some points into it's synergy.

Gearwise there have been steady updates, but unfortunately no Nagelring yet. I do have mf on all my jewelry by now though, so it's not too bad (but still a bit below 100% I think, not counting merc kills). I also got Gorefoots (twice), which improved my travel time a lot. The downside is that it has no mf obviously, but I haven't been gambling for boots anyway, as I wanted to keep all my gold to be able to shop for Scepters. I recently acquired a +3 Holy Fire for my main weapon and +3 Vigor for my switch, so I could and should start gambling now I guess.

Other gear is focused towards resists at the moment, but I should try to get mf on more pieces, as my current resists are really overkill at this stage.

I'm wondering what to do next: run Andariel (for more xp, Nagelring and overall TC3s, also the one boss pack that always spawns on my way to her has been dropping more TC3s than what can be expected from their normally really low drop rates), run Coldcrow (no or almost no xp, but probably best source for TC3, and especially Gull) or run the shrine close to the Dark Wood (or was it Black Marsh?) waypoint in an attempt to upgrade my topazes? Currently I'm using a 2 flawed helm and a 2 chipped armor, my merc dual 2 chipped, so there is definitely room for improvement there. I have a few chipped and flawed in my stash.

The other thing I'm wondering about is if it would be useful to just run an entire area. My Holy Fire has become strong enough that it can kill enemies in the first areas with a single pulse. Since the radius is also getting really big, this means I can kill a big amount of enemies in a short amount of time. So maybe it's worthwhile to do this, and it's on par with killing targets like Coldcrow or Rakanishu in terms of efficiency?

@Southpaw8668 I hear you on the second character. It seems like I won't have much time to play this week myself, but in other circumstances I would probably finish the first chararcter fast enough to have a second one, which I'd surely do, given how much fun I'm having with my Paladin. I noticed how important travel speed is in this challenge, so I'd go Assassin in that case, because of BoS.
T72on1 - I want to start by saying thanks for your idea of this tournament, it has made me quickly realize just how much of a prime target Andy is for all sorts is low qlvl S/U items. Yes running her this much is tiring, but very enjoyable compared to all the other targets I have giving the shake down. Cold Crow, Bone Ash, Griswald, Rakadishu and Treehead Woodfist all a bust. I've even bypassed the guaranteed boss pack on Catacombs level 3 to increase my speed getting to my Mistress of Pain because they never provided anything but a boost of xp early on. I'll close by stating I am amazed at the list of items I have assembled and often sold, but not without first noting. [emoji2]
There's a zombie boss on my Andy runs. I call him Ben Cortman. :)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00cjzpf/episodes/player
I have standard shaman boss when running Andy. He always runs to the wall where my fissure is the weakest. I could name him Shaman Wall-e. He is not photogenic, but also view at my Andy map. ISO teleport. I'm near the end with this char anyway. Might start new one soon.

w6ZOual.jpg
Mine is a Vampire (Banished I think, or is it a Ghoul Lord?). No fancy behaviour most of the times. After @Gripphon said that bosses in the later stages of Act 1 have terrible drop rates for TC3s, I didn't expect much of the kills. I was proven wrong ...
twice
Well... it is also known that Andy supposedly has decent drop chances, second to Coldcrow, yet in like 4 hours on her I was like "does she even drop tc3 or what?" Fair to say I gave up on her and am now simply paying a visit only to Rakinishu and Coldcrow cause... don't wanna waste time on supposedly good Andy. Someone else must have pretty decent luck on her to even things out. ^^
@Gripphon - Perhaps she has a thing for buff Barbarians like Charsi does. She just keeps dropping bombs on it.
I rolled an awesome map for stoney field. The Tristram portal is just footsteps away from the waypoint, so I have been doing rakinishu and griswold runs with some success. About 5 and a bit hours in so far. Not sure if i'll be able to start another character, but we shall see. Vigor is a huge help in saving time on runs!
Ironically, my sorc's Catacomb 2 map is laid out in a way where the Catacomb 3 entrance is right around the corner. If only I could swap Catacomb 2 with Gripphon...

If teleport charges weren't so expensive, it may be useful to try rolling a staff with teleport charges via the 3 chipped gem recipe? The recipe sets the ilvl to 25 and ilvl 24 is needed for those teleport charges I believe. If nothing else, you'll get a 10k gold staff to sell in Act 2.

I can't recall the level requirement needed for use on non-sorceress characters, though. I think it was much higher.
Since I'd like to keep this PC separate from my currently 1.13 stuff, it seems like this tourney would be ideal for playing around with a new character. Don't think I'll hit the time ceiling, but just in case I end up getting lucky

I'll be entering with HolySmokes a Boltadin maybe switching to Holy Fire who will begin by farming Blood Raven and her tombs, and some Act 2 undead heavy areas
@NanoMist
From what I see, on shopped staves what I did for LLD, level requirement is 24. I mean if it is really possible to roll teleport staff like that... I didn't even check cube recipes at all.
Right... I think it was circlets and amulets that had a much higher level requirement.. 48 was it? I never tried it, but theoretically it's possible to roll such a staff? Cut down run times on Andariel.
 
Brak said:
Since I'd like to keep this PC separate from my currently 1.13 stuff, it seems like this tourney would be ideal for playing around with a new character. Don't think I'll hit the time ceiling, but just in case I end up getting lucky

I'll be entering with HolySmokes a Boltadin maybe switching to Holy Fire who will begin by farming Blood Raven and her tombs, and some Act 2 undead heavy areas
Cool ! Welcome :). I'll add you right away.
Clocked in my 15 hours with Holy_Mann the firedin. Holy fire is weaker than what I remember, but he could drop Coldcrow and Andy pretty efficiently. 536 runs total between targets.

Too bad Gripgod is in this tournament but maybe I can make it to the top 10.
Well done !!! Do you plan another character?
No between this and my frenzy barb I'm a little burned out of D2 at the moment, time for some Morrowind :)
Fair enough :). What did you think of the 15 hour limit? Good, too short, too long?
got in a tad less than an hour
Started with Holy Bolt planning to run early Crypt/Mausoleum to get a set of topazes, but then went there and realized how stupid that was.

Will dedicate rest to Holy Fire until I stock up on MF gear, then respec to Holy Bolt/BH for a dedicated Bone Ash (mayhaps Radamant) runner just to try something different

I think I'm pretty slow at this stuff. Only made it up to Dark Wood WP and still no topazes *shakes fist at Diablo gods*
Finished up Concentration Barbarian with pretty good results. Started a Wake of Fire Assassin last night for an hour.
Nice. Good luck with the Assassin.
I've started tiger strike/dragon tail assassin. She seems ok, though I clearly like having ranged nuked more than melee. Also gambling for boots is gonna be slowish process unless I settle with second best boots for her. I think her damage will be enough to kill anything instantly, except Andy.
@Gripphon - Yes, after running Andy so many time with my Concentration Barbarian I soon came to realize a powerful, controlled attack was very useful to gauge when to stop attacking and let my town guard land the killing blow for his added MF. That will be much more difficult for me to control with this WoFsin. If I found that an issue I might more path with Fists of Fire on a re-spec.
I'm not sure how useful that merc killing strategy is. Usually in time I kill target, he is not even near me and to wait him until he decides to crawl down to me and hopefully not target all other monsters around...
Just finished my 15 hour set and I feel satisfied with the results. The first few hours were the most fun as I was trying to figure out the optimal questing/leveling sequence before the MF grind. I don't have any plans to start another character, since I am a bit tired of all the Andariel runs. Good luck to those still running.

Funny mistake I want to share with everyone. As I look over my TC3 stash, I was wondering why I had so many Arctic Binding Light Belts. Turns out it's a TC9 item I have been mistakenly picking up all this time- it felt like I found one every couple of minutes. Maybe I'll share the total just for amusement, since I went through all the trouble of picking them up.

FRW wasn't important for me, so I never bothered making a Zephyr bow. Anyone else try it? It's like a poor man's Harmony bow.
I'm afraid I'm not disciplined enough to keep running the same frutiful target over and over again. Instead, I'm having too much fun running a variety of the act I targets (Coldcrow, Bonebreaker, Rakanishu, Pitspawn Fouldog, Bone Ash, Andy, and a few lesser boss and champion groups on the way to each). I expect I'll get just shy of 65-70 of these broader runs within the time limit.

I went with a hunter build. My druid found a light crossbow with CTC amp and bonus AR/damage against demons, so I spent a large share of his level-up points in dex to run with that weapon. My Dire Wolves have been reasonably effective.

Notables: Andy has been generous with a couple of Nagelrings, and while leveling on my way to get the cube, I was surprised to get a nice TC3 from Creeping Feature, in the Act II Rocky Waste tomb. Also, I got lucky with my jail maps - stairs down are just around the corner from waypoint, and Pitspawn Fouldog is just around the corner from those stairs.

I have also been popping the sparkly chest in the Crypt, but no S/Us from it. Should I have just ignored the sparkly chest for this tournament, or have others had success getting TC3 S/Us from opening sparklies?
Gripphon said:
I'm not sure how useful that merc killing strategy is. Usually in time I kill target, he is not even near me and to wait him until he decides to crawl down to me and hopefully not target all other monsters around...
That is my experience as well. As a consequence I always make the killing blow myself.

NanoMist said:
Funny mistake I want to share with everyone. As I look over my TC3 stash, I was wondering why I had so many Arctic Binding Light Belts. Turns out it's a TC9 item I have been mistakenly picking up all this time- it felt like I found one every couple of minutes. Maybe I'll share the total just for amusement, since I went through all the trouble of picking them up.

I found plenty of those too. I was planning to post a list of all S/U I have found anyway, not only TC3.

Just as is the case with so many tournaments (and finding items in general, even when questing), my luck at finding stuff has been all over the place. Sometimes a long time without anything, but also times when I seem to continuously find good stuff during an hour. Or like yesterday, when I found 3 TC3s from Coldcrow in 4 consecutive runs. Only 1 of them was a grailer for the tournament, but still ...

Keep it up people !!! Also very curious to hear all the stories about your characters afterwards, if they were good choices or not, what you could have improved and what went well, streaks of luck, ...
Zephyr has been handy for Amatolle and her explosive arrows.

Dropped a magic Stag bow in the 'combs' but no two socket stag bow drop just yet.........
Better late than never, but I finally got a solid chunk of time to start my character!

Only 1.5 hrs in so far, but progress has been good. My fire trapper got off to a great start, finding her first chipped topaz in the Den. The only problem is, she hasn't seen another one since.

She has moved her way all the way up to the cube (Andy dropped nothing useful, of course), and finished her session by shopping some MF gloves and boots to make up for her utter lack of topazes. next on the list is shopping a couple 3os BPs and then heading to start running her various targets. Wake of Fire is very strong now, and with the help of a Leaf staff is killing all mobs in just a couple hits.
Got in another 30 min
Basically rescued Cain so I can get free ID's and then ran from Black Marsh to Inner Cloister WP killing random bad guys and all packs along the way.

Realized those early point in Holy Bolt were a waste, but I'm hoping Holy Fire is still strong enough. I'm usually a lot more leveled by now since I'm generally doing full clears. Also I haven't assigned almost any Stat points in case something drops that I need Str or Dex.

Finally got some MF from a 10% ring and my first chipped Topaz. But I got my only S/U before these finds, which was exciting, but currently useless.

Did some calculations and I can two shot /p7 Bone Ash with 22 point investment into Holy Bolt/Blessed Hammer at lvl 23 or 24. At the same time Blessed Hammer should 1 shot Dark Ones. I think I will respec then, but I'm not sure what aura to put on top of that, I will have 4 or 5 points leftover if I do lvl up that high. Basically choices are: Vigor for running speed (though I could put this on the switch); Meditation for mana regen (probably not worth it because I can just grab some pots or run over to Akara. This can also go on the switch); Concentration for extra Blessed Hammer damage; Holy Freeze for crowd control. I guess I'll just see what staffmods I get from rerolling all my chippies on a scepter since I should be able to get all of the above aura from those rolls, and whatever is effective dive into that further. Meditation might be ideal since I can also dump into Cleansing if I decide to run Andy.

Also need to decide on a merc. My current A1 merc keeps running in front of me when I'm try to shoot at undead. Since when do Rogues run out in front of you?

Right now the only difficulty is time.
Pushed hard to get to Andy, who doesn't drop to WoF as quickly as I had hoped, so I'm still taking her on at p3-5. I think I'll head back to the desert to nab the cube for rolling brutal polearms for the new town guard. After five Andy runs she's already sporting two low end Nagels and slowly finding more chipped topazes. Her armor is full of chips and the guard needs a few more. Already found one hidden gem that the Barb never did. [emoji2]
I've paused MA assassin for now since I'm not really in mood of playing her. Running to every single bosspack then charge up then kick seems like more work than I'm willing to do. So, I have started new char with simple reason - I really want to see WoF assassin in action. And boy, that thing is even stronger than I thought.

My map is not exactly good and will have to reroll it, but not before I use its biggest strength - I have nicely positioned 3 shrines I check before killing Rakanishu and 2 more next to a waypoint in Dark Woods. So, basically can check 5 shrines every run. Consequently started checking them from level 7 when I started to hit Rakanishu. First ptopaz was fastly done due to some gem shrine luck, but was not used (didn't have level for it lol). This time decided not to make chipped topaz helm for her and will simply use ptopaz helm since on this map it will be easy to make. Then proceeded to slay Andariel and then get fast cube + kill Radament. After that did a bit more of Rakanishu to shrine second ptopaz to make dual ptopaz helm after... 1 hour 44 minutes after start. Managed to do the same with Fissure druid after nearly 7 hours of playing, but he was a bit slower on questing side + had only 2 viable shrines to check per run, unlike 5 I have here. And clearly didn't go as focused toward it as I did now basically starting at level 7 at building it while with druid didn't even think about it for first 2 hours.

Second strength of the map is close Countess, but I don't really do more than like 5 runs on her, so doesn't matter at all. Coldcrow map could be better, Rakanishu is not really close to waypoint, but have 3 shrines in between so he is worth target for now, and Andy map is beyond terrible. But, Halls of Dead is ok map, that huntress boss is not far from waypoint and I'll do like 30 minutes of running on her to get fast to level 24. Should be fast with all those shrines available (actually will check 4 that are close to waypoints to not to go kill Rakanishu) and will take xp shrine quite often I believe. After that some "could be faster" Rakanishu + Coldcrow action until I shrine enough topazes to make 3 ptopaz armor to have switch with Stealth. After that I really need to reroll map to something better cuz I could really use Andy for a while until I build up MF on ring slots, and as well could really use Rakanishu closer to waypoint, and hopefully ok Coldcrow map. Also won't bother with merc topaz gear since he basically has no time to strike on opponent's before they die to fire. Ok, perhaps I could make him some cheap topaz armor and helm for lulz, but really have no intention on shrining topazes for him again.
made it through to Radament
lvl 19 now, hoping 23/24 wont be too annoying to reach.

Andy map is horrible, but have a good Radament map

1 topaz so far
thanks a lot
 
Very interesting to read about all the different running strategies being used by everyone. I ran Andariel exclusively in my 15 hours, but I decided to go take a look at the maps of other popular targets and see what could have been.

First my Cat 2 map I mentioned before:
I2KrCR4.jpg


Cat 3 map was mediocre though, but Cat 2 made up for it.

QVkjPeP.jpg


Cave map was so so.

GZ5pYUe.jpg


Cy6j3Gj.jpg



All targets decently close. No regrets running only Andariel though. :D
Amatolle finished her 900 minutes toting 304 mf maxed but preferred running Coldcrow with less wearing Hsarus set for the speed and cbf.

Merc managed to drop one TC3 item off screen but it was heard striking the ground. :cool:

About 20% of the TC3 tally (including duplicates) dropped by non super uniques.

Will try a Holy fire paladin next.
@Gripphon Yes, WoF is indeed very strong. The only reason I didn't go that route for this tournament, is that I was worried for mana issues. Other than that, WoF + BoS seems like win to me :).

I should have taken the time to go for perfect topazes as well. Currently only have 1 in my helm, with a second one in the making, but I'm doing my upgrades on a single shrine near one of the waypoints, not even on my way to one of the primary TC3 targets. I never seem to have the patience to build up properly, I guess.

On the upside, due to a certain drop, I'm still a little over 200% mf, so not too bad. I'm halfway in now, and I have the impression I got quite lucky on my drops. At least on the amount of it, in the end it will probably come down to those few elusives ones for most people.
hey guys i like to joint too.
Just started a Barbarian Hc :)
Cool :). You still have plenty of time left, good luck !!! If you manage to find dual Gulls, you should be set with a Barb when it comes to mf rating !!!

I'll add you to the list.
Gem shrines do appear in the first two areas due to a bug.
I had a barbarian trowing, but that was very long time ago.
Now i going to use 2 one hand sword, using mostly Duble Swing and Concentrate.
Managed to get Stone Field farmed Rakanishu until level 14, time passed very quickly,
Gambled 2 Crystal Sword and headed to Andariel.
Here is the First Andariel kill att level 18 :) Passed 2:06 hour!
1606485959002.png
helvete said:
Gem shrines do appear in the first two areas due to a bug.
Yes, but would be very unprofitable to check them there. They are like xy times rarer there than in areas later since they appear only due to bug and cannot spawn regularly.
Seems my ATMA stash doesn't exist

Is anyone else having this problem post 1.14?
I dont see why it would be effected


EDIT: huh, seems ATMA won't make new stashes in its current location, but if I move them to where 1.14 is saving my .d2s files its ok. Wondering what LOD will do to the .d2x files in there though.
Followed the advice of @Gripphon and checked my Stony Field map again. Turned out I could include 2 shrines without losing too much time on my way to Rakanishu. About 30 - 35 seconds a run. This way I could upgrade 4 more topazes to Perfect. Obviously I should have done this a lot earlier, but better late than never, I guess. Since then, my Paladin has exactly 300% mf. After that and in between I ran Andariel to get some more chippies and to get to lvl 25. Also in the hopes of getting some grailers, especially the higher qlvl ones, but no luck there.

All in all I spent about 2 hours doing this. More than I expected, but I still have some 5 hours to go, so plenty of time to run selected targets. I found quite some TC3s today, but no grailers. Hopefully next time.
Thanks the info @Gripphon, i mostly run Andy and Bone Ash , managed to get 250+ Mf.
No nagelring for now but dropped Gull :) Have nice hunting comrades.
I am stinking it up.
Then get your ass out there and do it better ... :cool:.

Had a rather bad session myself as well, I must admit.
I'm not part of this, but in 1.08 Treehead gave me this to say he was thinking of you all

The Hand of Broc
Leather Gloves
Defense: 12
Durability: 11 of 12
Required Level: 5
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 8
Fingerprint: 0x59c6d0d5
+20 to Mana
+10 Defense
Poison Resist +10%
3% Life stolen per hit
3% Mana stolen per hit

*had to edit as I had a typo in the name ..*

Edit 2:
Another character in normal tristram. Keep in mind this is 1.08 where MF is supposed to be useless. Glad to see stuff can still drop :D

Arctic Furs
Quilted Armor
Defense: 71
Durability: 14 of 20
Required Strength: 12
Required Level: 2
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 8
Fingerprint: 0xa2edd66
+310% Enhanced Defense
All Resistances +10

***Partial Set Item Bonuses***
+18 to Defense (3 per Character Level)
Cold Resist +15%
***Partial Set Item Bonuses***
Nice Timinator !!!

- can Coldcrow spawn close to the entrance of the cave, or is she always further away?
- can mf spawn on charms in this stage of the game?
- can mf spawn on jewels in this stage of the game?

Needless to say I'm preparing for my endrush to get some more TC3s ...
Until ilvl 21 there is nothing on charms, and ilvl 21 are grand charms with 1-4% MF. So in short, no.
Jewels with MF need ilvl 16 to spawn, so it is possible to find them on Bone Ash and possibly somewhere in act 2. They go 3-7%.

Don't know about Coldcrow, never seen her near entrance.
Thanks. I have Rakanishu next to the waypoint, I guess I'll mainly be running him until my time is over I think.

Edit: I wish I had found this one early in the tournament:

Code:
Plague Grip
Ring
Required Level: 3
Fingerprint: 0x6148edc9
Item Level: 8
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to Strength
40% Extra Gold from Monsters
10% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Ok, my 15 hours are over. The last 5 hours weren't so good in terms of drops, until a late Rakanishu drop and a last minute (well, 5 minutes) drop from a regular monster near a boss that I killed on my way to Coldcrow.

All in all a good run. Lots of fun, and quite happy with the results. More details will follow once the tournament is over.

Good luck to those still running. I won't enter with a second character, as I won't have much time to play it and I've had my share of Andy / Rakanishy / Coldcrow for now.
Looking at my week, I'll probably only get another 3-4 hr, which means at best about 7ish total running time.
I know I wont be competitve, but I'm trying to gauge how to max out my remaining time. Topaz's have been extremely stingy only getting 1! through attainment of the cube. I've been running some Tower/Countess since and have a whopping 2 flawed topazes currently. I don't think I'll have time for dedicated shrine running, so I'm gonna just settle for all flawed gear.

I've got a great Cold Crow map, but everything else is terrible. I'm not sure if I should reroll, or just cast all my chips in on running Cold Crow. Problem is gear upgrades are essentially going to be non-existent outside of a Gull dropping.

I did have on bit of luck rerolling blue scepters. This was my first attempt.

Drognan would have charged a lot more
 
Having fun playing Neville the HolyFireadin (aka chipped gatherer) through for 6 hours achieving a set of 5 perfect topazes by shrine running and a nice 10 mana 24 mf amulet by cubing. Shopped +3 scepters for vigor and holy fire. Effective play for some classes that would really benefit from an enforced stay in the early acts such as a necromancer (all those heads dropped!) or other sub classes reliant on low level skills such a fireball sorceress.

If the format could be nailed down perhaps it could be pinned as a perennial tourney.

Nice rare found.

1606486061977.png
That's a sexy sphere!

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk
Agreed! Pretty neat little sphere there!

Looking forward to results thread. Seems like many had fun running this tournament :)
@Brak Nice Scepter indeed.

I'd stick to Cold Crow if it's a great map. It's not like you get good mf gear from doing other targets, except for Nagelrings from Andy. And who knows you get lucky and find that Gull early on?

@Tarantella Really nice sphere you have there.

I wouldn't mind if people would still use this thread if they want to do a similar experiment. There's plenty to discover, with a variety of builds and tactics.
So I am 12.5 hours in with my Zeal Paladin and have 2.5 hours remaining. I went a very long time without finding many TC3s, but after a few recent rakainishu and griswold runs I have finally started discovering some! I have built up a decent MF base (no perfect topaz yet, but a flawless :)) so I hope to find more in the little bit of time I have left. I look forward to seeing how much everyone has found. Best of luck to everyone with the 3 or 4 days left before closing.
I have to say the 3 chippie recipe for scepters seems to be a great way of making cash in early game. I've only rolled about 5, but all of them have has 10k sell values on a 0.5k investment
Good one, didn't think about that. Not for getting a +Vigor or +Holy Fire Scepter early on either, I shopped those.
I hate to say....

...I told you so ;)
I have a short memory ... you have to tell me so over and over again :).
I'm finally on the board, but ironically most of my drops have come from chippie harvesting areas
Coldcrow has been absolutely useless
Did gamble a 12MF amulet with all that cash I made from scepter rolling, but i'm still only at 126 MF with none on the merc

Likely only time for one more session, so fingers crossed for that
I put some mf on my merc, but in the end he almost never got a kill in. He was just too slow. If I'd do this again, I wouldn't bother.
I didn't bother with merc MF. Well, he got my discarded gear when I upgraded, but as stated above I don't think he ever killed anything of value.

I completed 10 hours, and am pretty happy with the results so will stop there. Excited to see the results thread though and how everyone did!

Thanks again to T72 for hosting this competition, it was fun! :)
How would one re-roll a map in SP if your only to normal difficulty?
make a MP game
Brak said:
make a MP game
This. Only downside is that, compared to just switching difficulties, it seems to take forever. It's probably only 15 - 20 seconds, but I was glad that I got good maps quite fast, the few times I rerolled.

@Pb_pal You're welcome :). I'm glad you liked it, and I'm even more glad that so many people joined what at first seemed to be a 4 man tournament.
I finished today! It was fun, find items i never seen before in the game.
Overlay dropped lot of tc3 item!

Thanks for this tournament, i learned a few thinks in the game!
I never played this game deeply, good to know you can do other thinks too , not just running Bosses, or farming runes , or ..... You can make fun too, and i believe that is important :)

Nice hunting!!
T72on1 said:
I'm glad you liked it, and I'm even more glad that so many people joined what at first seemed to be a 4 man tournament.
if you host it, they will come
T72on1 said:
@Pb_pal You're welcome :). I'm glad you liked it, and I'm even more glad that so many people joined what at first seemed to be a 4 man tournament.
I blame Nagisa for this. Ever since he made appearance, people started to sign in like crazy. Apparently everyone thinks "if its good enough for a legend like Nagi, it is most certainly good enough for me"
@Gripphon - And here I thought you were the hunter legend that inspired all the late interest.
 
I'm pretty sure people saw that I was participating, and said to themselves, "Well, at least I won't come in last place..."

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk
I have 1 hour 49 min left to finish trapper. How things look right now, it is possible there might be a tie among my characters with possibly number of tc3 items to separate them from a dead tie. Interesting etc. Well, there is no tie yet, trapper still must find "something" for it to happen.

She has hit level 26 by running p5 Rakinishu + Tristram + Coldcrow constantly and will have like half million gold spare to go gambling spree before the end. I thought I'll run some Andy toward the end, but nah. I feel like farming bigger amount of tc3 is more important at this point since there might be a lot of tie-breaker situations on this tourney. I'm not sure is that good decision, but having terrible luck with Andy persuaded me to stay away from her.
I only did Andy on /p8 for the improved drops, rest of the bosses (mainly Rakanishy and Coldcrow in my case) on /p1, because player setting doesn't matter for their drops. One pulse of Holy Fire would kill Rakanishu. Why did you go on /p5?

I didn't do Tristram, because I got such a fast map on Rakanishu (and later on the combination of Rakanishu and Coldcrow), so I figured it would be better to only run that. I retrospect, given that there's also a boss pack and champs near Griswold, Tristram probably is worth it.

Half a million ... that's quite a lot of gold. I only had some 130K. Then again the last few hours I didn't bother picking up non S/U. No luck with the gambling, but odds are really smal to hit the jackpot there, I think.

Curious to see your (and everyone else's) results ...
Well, p5 for three reasons. One is to gain xp which made me level up from 25 to 26 that way. Second is I'm not really faster on p1 than on p5, with exception of Griswold himself. I count on creeps also not having entirely terrible drop chances in comparison to bosses (cca 40 creeps for 1 boss roughly). As for three, they drop chipped gems a lot, and well with cube recipe and picking up random magic wands/short staves, you get fast 10k gold per sale. Also you get more amulets/charms/jewels that also sell ok-ish.
That being said, I'm also very interested to see results from other people with other farming strategy. It is hard to estimate is it better to do Tristram + Coldcrow circles or doing Rakinishu + Andy circles. First strategy brings more tc3 items, while second could bring more diversity which is the point of this event after all, but it is hard to estimate. Some combination might be the best, but playing with druid, I didn't manage to get all "easy to get" tc3 items despite focusing on areas with highest chance for those to drop. So it is not clear is Andy's inferior tc3 drop frequency cancelled with bigger number of tc3 drops possible, or would sticking to earlier targets bring you similar diversity, but with higher amount of drops. I guess results will show.
Well, while I have kept track of the total number of TC3s, and even all S/U I found, I didn't take notes which item dropped where. I still remember a few, but certainly not all. Based on my experience in and memory from the tournament, I'd say that Andy drops TC3s at least as often as other targets like Coldcrow and Rakanishu, and probably more often. But it also takes longer to get to her of course, unless you get an increcibly good map.

I focused on Andy early on because I could get low and mid qlvl TC3s, Nagelrings, and a good chunck of xp. If I were to do it again, I'd probably do the same, but not after getting a good map with some shrines so I could upgrade my gems a lot faster. After that Rakanishu was a good target because he can drop up to qlvl 8, instead of Coldcrow's lvl 7. After that I still had some time left, and I was really surprised I failed to get an 'easy to get' TC3. Especially because I got really lucky on rerolling my Coldcrow map, getting the cave spawn next to the waypoint really fast, and having Rakanishu next to the wp in Stony as well, so I would start a game, take the wp to Stony, take a few steps in, pulse Rakanishu to death, take a few steps back to the wp (unless a S/U dropped), go to the first wp and hunt Coldcrow down. That was only about 3 - 4 seconds slower than doing only Coldcrow. But such is rng I guess.
I have concluded my farming 'strategy' was horrible and hopefully Noodle wont feel so bad

I should be able to get in enough time tonight to push 10 hr, which will make my lack of haul more embarrassing. I'm going to blame it on bad Topaz luck however.

I also got bored of how easy Holy Fire was and switched over to Holy Bolt. It's amusing to kill p8 Bone Ash in 1 to 2 casts. I'm hoping he will at least drop me a Blinkbat so I can feel slightly special in that I gathered one of the more difficult pieces.

Also part of my strategy relied on Blessed Hammer being decent at taking out creeps. I thought it'd at least compete with Holy Fire since it is on demand and not on a 2 sec pulse. But I forgot about waiting for the spiral to progress, so its actually slower than waiting 2 sec for Holy Fire.
Problem with Andy is in 1 minute you kill pretty much only her. Bosses in catacombs are ~6 times worse than Rakanishu regarding drop chances of anything as better info (meaning you must be really lucky to find more than 1 item from them during duration of whole tournament). Andy herself is overall comparable with Coldcrow due to having more drops, but downside is her position and bad bosses while getting to her, when at the same time bosses around Coldcrow are quite decent, as is Rakanishu and whole Tristram.

In short, statistically speaking, if you kill say Rakanishu + one-two bosses in catacombs + Andy in 1 minute, and if you say kill Rakanishu + Griswold + boss in Tristram + Coldcrow + boss in cave in 1 minute 10 seconds, second running strategy will bring you at average nearly twice the amount of tc3 in comparison to first. If you roll a better maps with more bosses in between (say 1 boss outside cave, 1 extra boss in Tristram, maybe 1-2 in cave itself), it gets even better.

This is normally excluding luck out of equation and speaking from expectation standpoint which could, or could not be fulfilled for each player. For myself Andy drops have been much worse than expected, she was basically only to get those Nagels and hasta la vista. For someone else she turned good. But her advantage is she is dropping more tc3 items than Rakanishu and Coldcrow (Rakanishu can also drop death set, Coldcrow can not), so diversity is there. Downside is you will have less frequent tc3 drops in comparison to other running strategies. But, you could win with having more different tc3 items despite finding less amount of them overall.

Decisions, decisions...
When I started my character, I prioritized TC3 diversity as I felt those three qlvl 10 items were needed to win. I figured there was a good chance someone would find all TC3's qlvl 8 or lower from the superunique targets, and I would need to beat that mark to have a chance. Thus I went after Andariel only, and possibly mix in Coldcrow, Rakanishu, etc after I obtain those three qlvl 10 items. Risky route as you can come up short on those < qlvl 8 items, or pay off big if you can get the qlvl 10 items in decent time. Highly recommend a sorceress for this route.

As for those four TC3's that Andariel can't drop - big congrats if you can gamble one of those, or get a Blinkbat's to drop. And I gambled nearly 2 mil gold.
My reasoning and as such my strategy was the same as that of @NanoMist. So I went out for higher qlvl TC3s first as well. Also because I could get Nagelrings and xp while doing so. I think @Gripphon 's numbers are right, but I got very lucky with the boss pack in Catacombs 3 which was right on my way to Andy. I don't recall the exact number, but I think I got at least 3, probably 4 different TC3s from them.

In the end my strategy turned out pretty well (not as good as I had hoped, but maybe that says more about expectations that were too high), and I also got some pretty low level rings, amulets and jewels.

Two days to go (less for some people) ... good luck everyone who is still running !!!
NanoMist said:
...
Highly recommend a sorceress for this route.
Sounds like a strategy worth to try next time. I'd like to play sorc once, if there will be more tc3 events like this that is.
I'm done. Did 15h with fire druid and fire trapper, and 4.5h with MA assassin. Well I could make more playing with third char, but will leave it this way to have a shot at last place.
Also amusingly enough, decided to do 1 hour of Andy with trapper as last thing. Good news, managed to find 1 tc3 from her! Bad news, I just threw it on a pile of its brothers in stash. At least managed to find 5 Nagels in that time. Exactly what I needed. Ty Andy.
Gripphon said:
Sounds like a strategy worth to try next time. I'd like to play sorc once, if there will be more tc3 events like this that is.
Yes, I think you'll like Andariel better when you can reach her in 15 seconds and kill her in ~2 seconds (P5). I think only fissure druid can kill her faster. It's a shame I had to spend nearly a third of my time staring at the S/E screen.
So I have completed the 15 hours with my zeal Paladin. I'll go ahead and take screenshots of what I have found (gomule unable to work) and post them when everyone else does. Highly doubt I did that great compared to most, but it was a fun and enjoyable experience. First tournament I have ever been a part of and I am highly intrested in doing another. Thanks for hosting T72on1 and i'll be back to post screenshots when the time comes.
Has the Sun gone down on Diablo 2 world yet?

End time of the tournament is Friday 15th April 11:59pm. For me that is in a bit more than 15.5 hours, but for some it might be coming close.

I don't have time this evening, so I will already put up a new thread in a few hours time, where you can post your results. Please wait to start posting there until it has been the end time for everyone (so probably in something like 24 hours?).

Looking forward to the final results.
Can't wait to wow everyone with that one Nagelring I found!

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I think everyone should also post total number of tc3 found cause I think tie breakers might play big role in determining placement of participants, otherwise there might be many ties among the results. Unless it doesn't matter and it is fine to have like 3-4 players sharing same position... I don't know will it happen, I just think it is very easy to happen on this kind of tourney.
The way I read the rules, every TC3 counts as a point even if it's a repeat. So yes, list all of them.
9. Every different (e.g. not already found) TC3 item grants you 1 point; readouts of all items can be posted here after the event; in case of a tie, the person who finds the highest total amount of TC3 items, wins

Actually, repeats don't bring points. Every tc3 counts only toward tie breaker in a case two or more players found same amount of different type of tc3 items. 23 is maximum amount of points player can have if he found every single tc3 item.
 
OK thanks for the clarification. Also do we add up all of our heroes TC3s for a collective score, or do we count them all separately as individual scores?
Each different character counts as a new entrant, with his own points for different TC3s. Otherwise the 15 hour rule wouldn't make much sense.

As Gripphon has pointed out, it's only the different tc3s that count. Otherwise you wouldn't have an incentive to run something else than Coldcrow and maybe Rakanishu in my opinion. Also, getting a lot of tc3s isn't hard, getting different ones is what is difficult.

In the case of a tie ... I have been thinking a lot about that, but I probably should have had a rule for that from the start. I mean, yes we could have total number of TC3s counting in case of a tie, but that wouldn't be fair towards people who spent their time hunting that elusive tc3, for example someone who ran Bone Ash for hours to try and get that Blinkbat's Form.

So for me, I wouldn't mind having a tie (which indeed is very likely). But if someone knows a good rule, I would love to hear it
.

Nvm, knowing the rules of your own tournament wouldn't hurt :oops:.
I'm now confused, isn't tie breaker already posted in your rule number 9 aka number of tc3 items found? It was there from the start.
Indeed it was. Sorry for the confusion. I blame a long week at work for that.

So for all clarity: in case of a tie, total number of tc3s wins.
So, are results gonna be today? I think some kind of deadline is always a good thing cause otherwise you might wait some players to report results till few days after event ended, and some players probably won't report at all anyway.
Yes, sorry. Like I said, this weekend has been terribly busy. As a consequence, I can't even post my own results until tomorrow around noon:oops:. But you are right, a deadline would be a good idea.

Next to my results, we need three more. I'll try to contact those people, so we can have the final result.
 
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