TC3 Hunting Tournament Winter 2022 - Sign-Up and Running Thread

[LouB]

Gotta share this one. Got back from visiting our daughter and too tired from driving 500 miles to start a new TC3 character. So, I decided to do a few LK and Travincal runs with my level 90 pally and what should drop but a Rixot's Keen. NOT when and where I wanted to find it, but I'll take it for my self grail

 

[Swamigoon]

Fourteen of fifteen hours completed with my amazon. I think I'll try again with a fire sorceress.

 

[m4ke]

I have done my 3rd Assassin and second Paladin. Still need to do better =)

m4ke

 

[LouB]

Second character up is going to be a barb.

 

[Nona]

About halfway through with my pally and it has been a bit of a slog. My map though is pretty dynamite and I'll plan on sharing at the end if I can figure out how to do a video. Does Griswold have some bonus to dropping socketed items? I feel like every time I kill him I get a gray item.

 

[LouB]

Griswold has a double drop the first can drop up to TC12 and the second up to TC6. So that may be why you are seeing a socketed item drop frequently. I don't remember any dropping for my paladin

1 1/2 hours on my barb nothing but a horrible Coldcrow map. On the plus side I've already found two socket helm and armor and put chipped topaes in them.

 

[Nano]

Finished 15 hours on the Sorc. I didn't track how many Andy runs were done, but enough to collect 44 Nagels in the end.

 

[Kruemelmonschda]

44 Nagels is a lot. I am one hour short and sit at about 12(?) Nagels with my Paladin.

 

[lizard]

Interesting. I am 12h into my fire druid and have found no nagels, but i am also not running andy at all. 500 treehead and boneash and ca 100 coldcrow runs. found 10 arctic furs so far...

 

[LouB]

Nano, I'm curious as to how you did with TC3 items from Andy. The old TC3 guide I posted says that she is horrible for TC3 items.

Lizard, 10 artic furs! and how many came from the same source?

 

[Kruemelmonschda]

The thing is, she might be horrible but she can drop every achievable TC3 item - excluding the items that must be gambled of course and Blinkbat's Form. Therefore i decided to farm Andariel exclusively with my Paladin. The nice thing is that she drops quite nice items for future twinks, e.g.

Spoiler: Nice Rare Twinking jewels (at least for me)

Viper Heart
Jewel
Required Level: 1
Fingerprint: 0xaa53176c
Item Level: 12
Version: Resurrected
+10 to Attack Rating
Adds 20 Poison Damage Over 2 Secs (50 Frames)
+5 Defense
+1 to Light Radius
Requirements --15%

Beast Heart
Jewel
Required Level: 1
Fingerprint: 0x5be767fd
Item Level: 12
Version: Resurrected
+12 to Attack Rating
Adds 20 Poison Damage Over 2 Secs (50 Frames)
+6 to Life
+10 Maximum Stamina

 

[lizard]

Nano, I'm curious as to how you did with TC3 items from Andy. The old TC3 guide I posted says that she is horrible for TC3 items.

Lizard, 10 artic furs! and how many came from the same source?

did not keep track of that. most from treehead i would say. he gave me the most TC3 by far.

I think Nano is going for their previous strat of running Andy exclusively until they get all her TC3 drops and try to gamble the rest. Worked well in the previous iterations. Plus she is a great source for Nagels to boost MF.

I tried some Andy runs, but the maps were all horrible, so I figured Tree and Boneash would be better and I wanted to get a chance at Blinkbat.
I think getting lucky on topaz, shrines and gull are crucial here.

@Kruemelmonschda I found some of those with Boneash and mobs in the Cathedral. found a 5max dam 10 ed and a -15req 20 poisn.

 

[Nano]

Nano, I'm curious as to how you did with TC3 items from Andy. The old TC3 guide I posted says that she is horrible for TC3 items.

Andy's TC3 drop rate is pretty good according to the drop calculators. She is probably the best target for those 3 Qlvl 10 TC3s, while still having good drop rates for the lower Qlvl TC3s. Biggest issue is that her runs take very long on non-sorcs compared to the top superunique targets.

From what I can remember in the previous tournaments:
Coldcrow is a top target for TC3s up to Qlvl 7, and one of the best targets for the rare trio of Bane Ash/Torch of Iro/Knell Striker. Their base items are rarer, so they are kind of the TC3 equivalent of Mang Song's/Death's Web/Astreon's.
Rakanishu and Treehead can drop the additional Qlvl 8 Death's glove & belt but is worse than Coldcrow for Qlvl 7 and below.
Andy for those 3 Qlvl 10 TC3s and below. P5 Andy is similar to Coldcrow for the rare trio, but that is a per kill comparison and not factoring in run times.
Gamble Blinkbat's/Vidala's/Sander's/Tancred's. Leather armor gives a chance for both Blinkbat's and Vidala's. For Set caps, 3 in 10 will be Sander's while 7 in 10 will be Infernal's. Tancred's boots have the highest Qlvl at 27, and depending on your character level, only a fraction of the gambled boots have an ilvl high enough to become Set.

 

[Nona]

So there is an honorable mention prize for the most Cleglaw's claws correct....geez louise!

 

[Swamigoon]

So there is an honorable mention prize for the most Cleglaw's claws correct...

Actually, my Arctic Binding tally may actually exceed my combined Cleglaw's Claw/Pincers count before I'm done...

 

[Nano]

I may have started a second set.. the first set felt lacking.

 

[ffs]

Oh no. I can already see it. Starts with a small tournament like this, et voilà... 2022, Nano's tournament "reign of terror" reinstated.

 

[Swamigoon]

Finished fifteen hours with the fireball sorceress. I'd like to try a third time with a Holy Fire paladin. I wonder, would a point in Vigor and its prerequisites be a worthwhile investment for TC3 hunting, or would it be better to just pump Holy Fire for faster Andy handling?

@Nano, thanks so much for the helpful guide-digest you wrote above for @LouB. Also, thanks @art_vandelay for linking the FAQ and the previous tournaments in the first post. They've been very helpful! Here's a list of things I tried, most of which seemed to give success. You all probably already know and use these tricks, but I wanted to write them down here anyway, for my own clarity.

• I got a chance to practice my own advice for rapidly advancing through Act 1 on /players8. In both of my TC3 hunting attempts so far, I have been able to secure the cube in less than an hour and forty five minutes. (I probably could have achieved the cube in under 90 minutes, but I think the extra 15 minutes are worthwhile to find and rescue Cain, to get his free identifies.)
• On the way to the cube, I picked up and identified every ring and amulet, just in case it could provide MF.
• I picked up and sold every throwing knife, throwing axe, and other high-sale-price loot (usually staffmodded items, heavy body armors, and potion weapons). By pawning these, I have been able to collect enough gold to let me gamble decent MF gloves and boots pretty early on. Gheed has yet to fail to put MF on each of my character's hands and feet, well before facing Andy for the first time.
  • Toward the end of the fifteen hours, I again quickly burned through my hoarded gold, but this time at Elzix, hoping to get one of the those high qlvl TC3 leather armors or boots.
• After getting the cube, I either (1) ran Andy a bunch, to try to get a couple of Nagelrings, or else I (2) noted which tagged waypoint is closest to a potential topaz-upgrade shrine, and then I ran whatever superunique was closest to that shrine.
• I also tried to make sure to pick up a mana potion (and a healing potion if necessary) before each save and exit, and then drink them down as soon as the next game started. That way, the bulbs would fill themselves up while I was running, and I didn't need to spend extra detour time to visit Akara or Fara for bulb-filling.

Also, something I tried that wasn't helpful at all: racking in a room around the corner from Feeping Creature Creeping Feature, in level 2 of the Stony Tomb. Unfortunately, the TC3s from those racks were always white, never magic/rare/set/unique.

 

[Grisu]

I did not manage to get any running time in. Just had the time to level my barb and do like 20 runs or so... Sorry, RL has been keeping me busy

 

[Nano]

Finished fifteen hours with the fireball sorceress. I'd like to try a third time with a Holy Fire paladin. I wonder, would a point in Vigor and its prerequisites be a worthwhile investment for TC3 hunting, or would it be better to just pump Holy Fire for faster Andy handling?

Vigor would also help you get to Andy faster, so could be worth it anyway. A scepter with +Vigor could also work but you sacrifice a weapon slot for it.

---

Sorceress 2 was able to collect/cube 5 flawed topazes by the time she hit level 25, so it was time to hit up some shrines and try a 3 PTopaz armor instead of Stealth. Shopped a +2 Firewall 2 OS staff in 5 minutes this time. One other change is running P7 Andy instead of P5 Andy- a single firewall with the Leaf staff can still kill her.