TC3 Hunting Tournament Winter 2022 - Results

[art_vandelay]

The results are in!

Name​	Distinct TC3 items​	Total TC3 items​
Nano​	21​	98​
m4ke #1​	16​	50​
m4ke #2​	16​	39​
Kruemelmonschda​	15​	35​
lizard​	13​	54​
Swamigoon #1​	11​	12​
Swamigoon #2	10	10+
Nona​	9​	9+​
Lou B​	8​	10​
Friiser​	7​	12​
Swamigoon #3	3	3+

Me and Grisu did not run and Antirush did not submit a score.


Congratulations to @Nano for the decisive win and new record! (the old record of 20 was also by him ). And of course congratulations to everyone else who found that elusive TC3 item they were looking for!

Now it is time to post your finds, characters and strategies. Have fun!

 

[lizard]

Congratulations to @Nano on another decisive win.

I unfortunately had less time than expected and only managed to do one character. I opted for Druid, because I restarted on 1.14 on HC. I never found a good Andariel map and opted for a combination of Cold Crow, Bone Ash and Woodfist with gambling at the end.
Build was max Fissure with Zephyr on switch and Stealth for FRW.
Rest was maxed for MF.
MF Ring/Amu
MF Boots/Gloves from Elzix/Fara
MF Cap 2 PT
Gull and rare buckler with random stats
Total 250 ish MF

Haul pic:


Would have loved to try an Assassin or Paladin.

Looking forward to the other builds/strategy.

I really enjoyed this Tournament and it set up this character quite nicely to progress through the rest of Normal with relatively high MF to find upgrades later for NM/leveling.

 

[Swamigoon]

Hats off to you, Nano, and to you too, m4ke, Kruemelmonschda, and lizard! Moreover, thanks to everyone for competing with me!

There were just two TC3s that I hadn't yet found: a Pluckeye and a Torch of Iro. During this tourney, I found two of those unique short bows, so now my only remaining TC3 grailer is the wand!

Spoiler: Amazon finds

Duppy the amazon collected Death's Guard, Death's Hand, and Felloak. (I didn't get a screencap of the gloves.)




I don't know exactly how much MF she acqured for her gear, but it wasn't much: a couple of Nagelrings (16 and 22 MF respectively), gambled MF boots and gloves, and some flawed and square topazes in sockets on her hat and blouse. She maxed her Critical Strike skill, and she used only normal attack, with that CS passive ability enhancement, for her entire fifteen hours, advancing to level 20.

Spoiler: Sorceress finds

Chiru the sorceress found Hsarus' Fist, Infernal Cranium, Two Death's Hands, Arctic Furs, Hotspur, Biggins' Bonnet, Gull, Pluckeye, Bane Ash, and a couple of items I failed to screencap: Arctic Furs and Pelta Lunata.


She worked with five points in Fire Ball and a point in Static Field, then when she reached level 18, she also put one point in each of Fire Wall and Teleport. By the time her 15 hours were up, she was level 23, and she had grown to 262% MF: her Gull, two chipped topazes in her hat and a flawless and flawed topaz in her ring mail, 9 MF amulet, two Nagelrings (19 and 26), 25 MF gloves, and 16 MF boots.

Spoiler: Paladin finds

Bennu the paladin found Four Hsarus' shields, Infernal Cranium, Death's Hand, two Death's Guards (one of which he wore for most of his fifteen hours), Hotspur, Pelta Lunata, Greyform, Felloak, Gull, and a gambled Pluckeye. Only ten distinct TC3 items, though, so my sorceress actually got a higher score.


Bennu reached level 21, and used a point each in Vengeance and Vigor, twelve points in Holy Fire, and a couple of synergy points in Resist Fire. He acquired 302 MF, the highest of my entrants. A reliable shrine just barely off-screen from the Black Marsh waypoint helped him get four perfect topazes into his skull cap and breastplate, and he also gambled 22MF rare gloves, 23MF magic boots, found a 5MF amulet, took two fantastic Nagelrings (29 and 27) away from Andy, and finally, a little after twelve hours of playing, Cold Crow finally let him take a Gull dagger.

Thanks, art_vandelay. I enjoyed this little tournament very much, and not just because it helped me acquire another grailer.

 

[LouB]

Congratulations Nano. I just did the one run. Horrible maps for everything. The one exceoption is that there was a boss pack just outside the catacombs level 2 waypoint that dropped 2 TC3 for me. while 8 wasn't that many 3 of them were firsts for me. That leaves just one more to find the Knell Striker.

 

[Nona]

Congrats Nano! I think if I would have had a different set up I could have been more competitive in this tourney as my map was pretty awesome I think.



Treehead right at the waypoint. I didn't have to move off the waypoint to kill him, he came to me as soon as I arrived.

Similarly Rakinishu was just a short run away from stony fields



Slightly to the lower left was frequently a death clan or whatever the normal version is called boss pack (I'm standing where they usually spawn)

Then off to tristam


Here was always a champion pack and very frequently also a boss pack at the gold piles.



And then always a boss pack just slightly further from there and Griswold who didn't drop anything except a lot of socketed items


Haul pick plus Clegaws shield. For a while, I thought I might get more of those than all my TC3s combined.

As I am considering this character for UT99er or maybe some type of UT tourney I didn't want to use a respec so he is planning on a hammerdin build eventually. I am sure a fire pally would have been much more efficient. I think I ended up with between 8-9 hours total for him. That is by far the most amount of time I have spent going from lvl 20-21

 

[Nano]

I ran two sets, both with Sorceresses starting in the lightning tree and respecing into Firewall for Andy.

First set ended with 16 distinct TC3 items and 63 total TC3 items. (Also 44 Nagels)

Spoiler: Set 1 TC3 Drop Distribution

1 Pelta Lunata (Qlvl 3)
5 Rixot's Keen (Qlvl 3)
1 Biggin's Bonnet (Qlvl 4)
2 Felloak (Qlvl 4)
6 Gull (Qlvl 6)
5 The Gnasher (Qlvl 7)
- Hotspur (Qlvl 7)
2 Hand of Broc (Qlvl 7)
1 Knell Striker (Qlvl 7)
- Bane Ash (Qlvl 7)
1 Torch of Iro (Qlvl 7)
- Greyform (Qlvl 10)
3 Lenymo (Qlvl 10)
1 Pluckeye (Qlvl 10)
- Blinkbat's Form (Qlvl 16)

6 Arctic Furs (Qlvl 3)
5 Hsarus' Iron Fist (Qlvl 4)
7 Infernal Cranium (Qlvl 7)
11 Death's Hand (Qlvl 8)
6 Death's Guard (Qlvl 8)
- Vidala's Ambush (Qlvl 19)
- Sander's Paragon (Qlvl 20)
- Tancred's Hobnails (Qlvl 27)

16 distinct TC3s was worse than past tournament results, so I decided to run a second set given the long tournament duration. In this second set I ran with a 3 PTopaz armor instead of Stealth, and also picked up less items from Andy to sell. Final MF: 326%.

Even though I collected about 3 million gold in this second set vs the 5 million gold in the 1st set, the gambling results were way better:
After 1.5 million gold, a black leather armor appeared in my inventory:

Not too long after:

Gambling costs were in the 5-6k region, so I had a good chance to get Vidala's or Blinkbats given the number of gambles. The Tancred's really surprised me with how quickly it came after the Vidala's, even more so considering the high qlvl of 27 making the odds worse.
Items persisting in the gambling window in D2R is great; back in 1.14d I had to gamble any leather armor, cap, or boots I came across. I gambled in legacy graphics since buying and selling is faster in that mode. Double left click spam buys faster than the delayed right click buy. No gap between the vendor and inventory screen allows faster menuing.

The result was much more TC3 items: 21 distinct TC3 items and 98 total TC3 items. (Also 58 Nagels)

Spoiler: Set 2 TC3 Drop Distribution

4 Pelta Lunata (Qlvl 3)
4 Rixot's Keen (Qlvl 3)
3 Biggin's Bonnet (Qlvl 4)
4 Felloak (Qlvl 4)
6 Gull (Qlvl 6)
3 The Gnasher (Qlvl 7)
2 Hotspur (Qlvl 7)
5 Hand of Broc (Qlvl 7)
2 Knell Striker (Qlvl 7)
4 Bane Ash (Qlvl 7)
3 Torch of Iro (Qlvl 7)
1 Greyform (Qlvl 10)
2 Lenymo (Qlvl 10)
11 Pluckeye (Qlvl 10)
- Blinkbat's Form (Qlvl 16)

8 Arctic Furs (Qlvl 3)
11 Hsarus' Iron Fist (Qlvl 4)
9 Infernal Cranium (Qlvl 7)
6 Death's Hand (Qlvl 8)
9 Death's Guard (Qlvl 8)
1 Vidala's Ambush (Qlvl 19)
- Sander's Paragon (Qlvl 20)
1 Tancred's Hobnails (Qlvl 27)

Due to the 32 item cap, I had to split the haul pics:

A couple of items don't show since the 2nd and 3rd pics are slightly over 32 items.

Thanks to art_vandelay for hosting!

 

[ffs]

@Nano still didn't find all TC3s? So disappointing! Also congrats.