Terror zones and the Quest for 99

Oh, just to add that the 2.6 patch is apparently not applying properly to assassin traps and sunder charms as macrobioboi ... So you may have to park your lightning trapper.

 
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So, /p7 terrorized frenzytaurs. How do you deal with them?

My javazon makes a short work with them, but my hammerdin struggles a lot to take them down. And man, they hit like a truck.
 
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I can understand it seems quite unfair for those who spent hours and hours getting to 99 but there wasn't really any reward other than personal goal to motivate players go for it. It really requires so much time and if we include deaths it could push you back weeks and maybe months of progress.

My highest char before D2R was an Amazon at 97 and that's only because she was a Magic Find build which we tend to use a lot. Most of the rest characters that we spend so much time to dress with the best possible gear usually remain inactive because they really serve no purpose.

Terror Zones seem like a good solution to use those powerful characters, put their strength to the test and eventually making the journey to 99 doable. My only concern from what I can read is that Terror Zones are not that intimidating? I wish they would at least make them severely more dangerous to balance the greater experience gained and put a challenge to highly optimized builds.
I've been trying some different builds with the PS assassin using dual Mosaic. I was trying maxed PS, CoT, and BoI when the cow level became terrorized. So, I went and tried /p8 terrorized cows and it was a cake walk. I haven't optimized yet (still a bit of a glass cannon) and I think she was clearing faster than my javazon (which isn't too optimized, needs griffon's and more skillers). The one drawback I noticed is that you don't have time to stop and pick up loot since you have to keep moving to keep the charges up, so I had to make a second pass to go through items. I think that the time per run may be slower than the javazon due to that. Anyway, I agree it would be nice if the difficulty was higher.
 
So, /p7 terrorized frenzytaurs. How do you deal with them?

My javazon makes a short work with them, but my hammerdin struggles a lot to take them down. And man, they hit like a truck.
Does the hammerdin have max blocking? I think that's pretty important, as hammerdins come rather close to their opponents. In melee, max blocking is like having four times as much life in comparison to no blocking at all. Also, switch off run mode in critical situations. When running, blocking is reduced to 1/3 (and max blocking as well, so you cannot overstack it) and the hit procedure is skipped altogether, so if the attack cannot be blocked, you are hit 95% of the time. Besides, a paladin doesn't really need to have run mode activated at all because he can charge when having to be quick and charge with run mode disabled isn't much slower, as charge adds a constant value to speed.
 
In really dangerous areas I'll have my hammerdin walk instead of running because of the penalty, use tele enigma to get around throwing up hammer fields.

Plus I use an act 5 barb dual wielding grief and lawbringer and the
 
... you get sanctuary aura which pulses the undead back and basically stun locks them, decrep goes off all the time so you slow everyone down, this gives you the opportunity to tele to the dangerous pack to throw up a hammer field and tele out, you can then flash redemption or drink a pot if necessary.

Rinse and repeat. Make sure to reapply CTA on switch and Holy shield.

Something like that
 
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I had a go last night and loved it. The variety of the different levels which I'd normally not touch after questing. I found 4 sunder charms of which 3 were different ones. I found two unique exceptional I hadn't found yet in D2R so looking forward to doing more.

I don't think anyone who may get a 99 via TZs will want equal bragging rights with those who did it before. They know the crazy effort that takes and how they have had to do so much more. But still I've never even hit 95 yet so looking to break my personal ceiling.
 
My zones tonight were the Durance, Crystal Passage and Frozen River, the Pit and Ancient Tunnels.

I did not clear Durance level 2, but had a fairly long run from the waypoint to the level 3 door. I did clear all of level 3 and got about 1.8m which I thought was a little disappointing considering it included Meph. Perhaps this is an answer to Krischan question #1.

I got 2.5m for just doing a full clear of the Frozen River and 3.8m for Crystal Passage and the Frozen river.

Clearing both levels of the Pits gave about 2.2m and AT was around 1.7m

@krischan the Zealot ran from me, but not till I killed the hierophant they were guarding. I got in the habit of killing the hierophants and the vampires so that they interfere with my attack on the council.

@Avengor I admit to being somewhat obsessed with getting max resistances and it took me a long time not to stress about less that 75% cold even though I had on a Raven Frost. Don't forget the absorb gear like Raven Frost and Thundergod's Vigor. Absorb acts before your resists get considered. Barbs are also fairly easy to get to 75% resistances even without a shield. A couple of points in Natural resists, then there's Arreats with 30 to all and if needed some charms. My wolfbarb, who is very twinked, has positive resistances even when convicted.

The worst character that I had resistance issues with was a Paladin Ranger. So, no shield and I needed conviction on to kill anything in hell.
 
I would never equate a level 99 under Terror Zones with pre Terror Zone 99'ers.

The grind and dedication needed for an old school 99'er in Single Player is an order of magnitude harder or something like that.

It's like climbing your local hard hike and climbing Everest.

Just got this sunder in Trav

Screenshot067.png


Have to say, like many others here this TZ has refreshed the game for me. I'm running areas that I had basically shelved apart from questing.
 
Impressive stuff everyone who is finding the Sunder Charms! I've been running with 400% MF Hammerdin yesterday and today and haven't seen one yet. I guess I'm just not efficient enough / not enough MF / RNG.

Going to try with the Pit Berserker tomorrow for some more MF, though I'm sure it will be a tad more lip-biting in terms of survivability depending on what areas roll Terrorized.
 
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Impressive stuff everyone who is finding the Sunder Charms! I've been running with 400% MF Hammerdin yesterday and today and haven't seen one yet. I guess I'm just not efficient enough / not enough MF / RNG.
Probably RNG more than anything else. I played a couple hours last night at a very slow and leisurely pace (across several different characters mostly not setup for MFing) and got nothing. Same approach tonight, and I landed two Sunder GCs. They will drop before long.
 
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Yeah, it's RNG. I'm finding them just fine with my Hammerdin at 430% MF. If you kill density in a high player count, they will eventually drop. That matters more than MF.
 
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Does the hammerdin have max blocking? I think that's pretty important, as hammerdins come rather close to their opponents. In melee, max blocking is like having four times as much life in comparison to no blocking at all. Also, switch off run mode in critical situations. When running, blocking is reduced to 1/3 (and max blocking as well, so you cannot overstack it) and the hit procedure is skipped altogether, so if the attack cannot be blocked, you are hit 95% of the time. Besides, a paladin doesn't really need to have run mode activated at all because he can charge when having to be quick and charge with run mode disabled isn't much slower, as charge adds a constant value to speed.
Yes, I recast CtA, he has max blocking with Holy Shield and doesn't run at all—he is using Enigma. The /p7 terrorrized frenzytaurs just tank his 14k blessed hammer like it's nothing and end up landing a few blows here and there. My javazon can kill them way faster with Lightning fury, but she is not as sturdy. I got a nasty Might Extra Fast Extra Strong frenzytaurs at the Drifter Cavern that vaporized her in a heartbeat.
 
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I guess it was RNG--managed to land EDIT: *four* Sunder Charms this morning.
So, /p7 terrorized frenzytaurs. How do you deal with them?

My javazon makes a short work with them, but my hammerdin struggles a lot to take them down. And man, they hit like a truck.

This does have ramifications for leveling in terror zones. Overall, it certainly makes 99 enormously easier to have these zones, but I'd expect more deaths along the way if one doesn't avoid certain areas.

The terrorized Glacial Trail/Drifter Cavern was dangerous for my Hammerdin as well. He's done /p8 CS runs without ever even being in danger of dying and had in fact never died anywhere--until yesterday.

Teleporting amped into a nasty mob of Rot Walkers and Serpents who all charged him at the same time and... gone. I didn't have a corpse retrieval kit in my stash, but I doubt I would have been able to retrieve it regardless.
 
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Going to try with the Pit Berserker tomorrow for some more MF, though I'm sure it will be a tad more lip-biting in terms of survivability depending on what areas roll Terrorized.
I'm finding them all the time, as well as grand charms in general. It's 8 or 9 sunder charms so far, all lightning, fire or cold for some reason.

I think sunder charms aren't important as long as you don't have extraordinarily well-equipped characters with enough -res gear to deal significant damage to the formerly immune monsters that have 95% res then... and -cold res (like from cold mastery) works at just 1/5 strength, so cold sorcs don't have an easier time. The higher monster level and thus better drops are more significant. You don't really need sunder charms if you have a good selection of perhaps 4 characters, one of which cal deal with any terror zone.

I haven't had a terror zone yet that couldn't be handled rather easily with my existing characters and none of them is really extraordinary. My bowazon has Faith, my fana-zealot has Grief, my cold sorc has (perfect) Nightwing's, my fohdin has HotO, my lightning sorc has Call to Arms, but that's basically the "elite" gear I'm using. Surprisingly, the character who can handle the most of them well is my physical bowazon (Faith, Giant Skull, Skullder's, Laying of Hands, Razortail, fhr/res boots, Atma's Scarab, Ravenfrost, dual leech ring, Gheed's, res charms, no torch/annihilus). Physical immunity is less common than cold, fire and lightning immunity and most of the physical immune don't have much life (except those PI franzytaurs in some of the act 5 caves), so once they are amped by Atma's Scarab, they are no problem anymore.

Time for a rant:

I'm haven't found a Herald of Zakarum so far since D2R is out. I have found two Jah runes, Cham, 3 or 4 full Tal's, I'm one caduceus away from finishing not one, but two Griswold's sets (the Mount Everest of sets), 10 shakos, 10 Andarial's Visages, 5 Mara's, 2 Griffon's etc. etc. etc., but no lousy HoZ! I imposed the silly restriction on me that I won't start farming torches until my fana-zealot is finished which includes Enigma and a HoZ. I could probably cube up runes for Enigma (I already have Jah, see above), but as I don't have that HoZ, I won't do so, of course. I could certainly get torches with what I have, but frustration makes me stubborn and I won't change my character flaws because of a silly game!!11!
 
Yeah, I'm not finding sundering charms that important, either. Sure, it's cool to break Cow King lighting immunity, but over and over I'm asking myself… is it worth it to play around it? Why should I use a fire sundering charm and push the -EFR in my fire druid via his faceted Raven's Lore and Phoenix to compensate the -70/-90% FR if I can use other characters to deal with fire immunes that can't be broken with Infinity? I can see the benefits in some characters, especially if they can stack -enemy elemental resist, but it isn't a universal thing. It's a very niche thing. They are useful in very specific situations. Or, at least, that's my first impression.

Regarding RNG… I have 2 Griffon's and a Tyrael, and no Arreats or Aldur's armor. That's all I have to say.
 
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that's nuts. Since restarting with d2r fresh i've found maybe 4 arreats at least and more Aldurs. I'm just missing Tyrael's for my grail and no Griffon's this time around. WTF.
 
I'm finding them all the time, as well as grand charms in general. It's 8 or 9 sunder charms so far, all lightning, fire or cold for some reason.

I think sunder charms aren't important as long as you don't have extraordinarily well-equipped characters with enough -res gear to deal significant damage to the formerly immune monsters that have 95% res then... and -cold res (like from cold mastery) works at just 1/5 strength, so cold sorcs don't have an easier time. The higher monster level and thus better drops are more significant. You don't really need sunder charms if you have a good selection of perhaps 4 characters, one of which cal deal with any terror zone.

I haven't had a terror zone yet that couldn't be handled rather easily with my existing characters and none of them is really extraordinary. My bowazon has Faith, my fana-zealot has Grief, my cold sorc has (perfect) Nightwing's, my fohdin has HotO, my lightning sorc has Call to Arms, but that's basically the "elite" gear I'm using. Surprisingly, the character who can handle the most of them well is my physical bowazon (Faith, Giant Skull, Skullder's, Laying of Hands, Razortail, fhr/res boots, Atma's Scarab, Ravenfrost, dual leech ring, Gheed's, res charms, no torch/annihilus). Physical immunity is less common than cold, fire and lightning immunity and most of the physical immune don't have much life (except those PI franzytaurs in some of the act 5 caves), so once they are amped by Atma's Scarab, they are no problem anymore.

Time for a rant:

I'm haven't found a Herald of Zakarum so far since D2R is out. I have found two Jah runes, Cham, 3 or 4 full Tal's, I'm one caduceus away from finishing not one, but two Griswold's sets (the Mount Everest of sets), 10 shakos, 10 Andarial's Visages, 5 Mara's, 2 Griffon's etc. etc. etc., but no lousy HoZ! I imposed the silly restriction on me that I won't start farming torches until my fana-zealot is finished which includes Enigma and a HoZ. I could probably cube up runes for Enigma (I already have Jah, see above), but as I don't have that HoZ, I won't do so, of course. I could certainly get torches with what I have, but frustration makes me stubborn and I won't change my character flaws because of a silly game!!11!
What's interesting is that i've popped at least 3 HoZ's from doing p7/8 LK runs from logs this time around. The first one was like "ok! hammerdin!" and then the next couple of times i'm like "ok! how about something else!?"
 
Still no Sunder charms. Thought I had one last night, but it was a Gheeds and a poor on at that (20%MF). Been mostly running my wolfbarb who has almost no MF currently. Will have to make a few adjustments.

While running the AT TZ last night I actually had to take 3 purple pots while taking down a triple boss pack with one boss having conviction. My life bulb almost never gets down to half so it was a little startling. So, when multiple boss packs converge the TZs could need a plan other than simply charging into their midst!

I haven't seen any comments about TZ in normal or nightmare while questing.

I've been thinking about the Bone Breaker Sunder Charm. Currently, I'm using and Act 2 merc with a Reaper's Toll, primarily to break PIs. I fully realize that Depcrepify does much more than break most PIs, but I was thinking about using the Bone Breaker and switching to a Rogue with a Faith bow. I won't get an increase in attack speed (already at 5fps) and I really don't need another boost in AR (already at 77% chance to hit Baal). Any thoughts on whether the 144% increase in damage is going to be an improvement on Decrepify?
 
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